WordPress or OpenCart?

A friend of mine has an online shop... a bit old one, around 7 years or more. It's made on MaxCart but it's not updated and it does not have some of the functions the modern sites have, so I suggested he makes a new one.

My question is which platform is better? WordPress or OpenCart?

The products on the site are around 500. Is this too much for WordPress?

Should we choose OpenCart?

Warm regards

Sanjay852 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 10, 2020 4:17 pm

A friend of mine has an online shop... a bit old one, around 7 years or more. It's made on MaxCart but it's not updated and it does not have some of the functions the modern sites have, so I suggested he makes a new one.

My question is which platform is better? WordPress or OpenCart?

The products on the site are around 500. Is this too much for WordPress?

Should we choose OpenCart?

Warm regards

OpenCart is a very mature eCommerce solution, with a very active community, and it is focused on creating online stores. You don't need extra extensions, just with the basic set up you can create your store easily.

WordPress needs WooCommerce plugin. I suggest to read about it and see if it fits your needs.

Opencart for me every time. IMO Wordpress is good as a blog. That's it. It's takes a lot of customization and/or plugins to make it work as a website and as mentioned the Woocommerce plugin to make it work as a shop. If you have a blog and want to sell the odd few items then maybe it has appeal but as a full blown ecomemrce platform IMO it doesn't cut it.

+1 for Opencart

I will recommend Opencart, as it is an open-source platform that works with PHP and MySQL. For any size of the store, and OpenCart is the best one. It’s also a user-friendly interface that ends up saving time.

Wordpress is a blogging system abused as a shop system by f.e. Woocommerce. It is slow and the shop is clumsy implemented around the structure of Wordpress. If you need a shop than build a shop. Opencart is a very good shop solution. Wordpress is nice for blogging, but all these plugins make it a developer's hell.

So which is better? Wordpress for blogging, Opencart for shopping.

johanvandemerwe wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:46 pm

Wordpress is a blogging system abused as a shop system by f.e. Woocommerce. It is slow and the shop is clumsy implemented around the structure of Wordpress. If you need a shop than build a shop. Opencart is a very good shop solution. Wordpress is nice for blogging, but all these plugins make it a developer's hell.

So which is better? Wordpress for blogging, Opencart for shopping.

Yes, this is a perfect answer. WordPress is best for blogging, reviews based website while OpenCart is perfect choice if you are doing ecommerce.

OpenCart is primarily an ecommerce platform, unlike wordpress. If your main focus is on the online sales side of products, then OpenCart is your first choice. Besides, there are CMS plugins available for OpenCart so it could also work as a simple Blog system, too. And it's all open source, using an easy to understand MVCL PHP-framework.

The clear winner here is OpenCart, as it has plugins for everything an online store can possibly need. WordPress has a WooCommerce plugin that I've found inconvenient and too complex, though it also has lots of additional plugins for everything from shopping carts to delivery management functionality.

i want to redesign my website sell property, mostly use Wordpress or opencart ?? pleasee give me answer , thank youuuu

egihrsn wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:51 am

i want to redesign my website sell property, mostly use Wordpress or opencart ?? pleasee give me answer , thank youuuu

Share the site example which you are looking at to see which platform they are using. You can use anything its upto you that how you see your cart to work

egihrsn wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:51 am

i want to redesign my website sell property, mostly use Wordpress or opencart ?? pleasee give me answer , thank youuuu

If you you want to sell property look at one of the opensource real estate scripts. They're probably more suitable.

Differences between WordPress and Open Chart:
1- Convenience and ease of using open chart compared to WordPress
2- Using Open Chart for startups and novice online stores is the best choice because using all its features and facilities is free.
3- In terms of SEO, WordPress has a much higher and better position than open chart.
4- Using free WordPress support and using open chart support requires paying a monthly and annual subscription.
5- From the point of view of blogging, it is obvious that WordPress has the highest position compared to other online instrument store platforms due to using all the features and facilities of WordPress.

This thread is terrible...
How did we ended up comparing Wordpress to Opencart???

Chalk and cheese, apples and oranges, Box and Cox... And even trying to compare Opencart to WooCommerce (that should have been the more plausible subject of this thread) is still no possible, as WooCommerce is just a plugin, not a stand alone Ecommerce

Have a look here to see how well it does..

https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wo ... /?filter=1

This is also the graph of the Active installations



Lots of people do try WooCommerce but then move on..

And this is just WooCommerce alone, with no all the other plugins actually required to make WooCommerce a "standard" Ecommerce solution. This is just to run WooCommerce on Wordpress.

Don't get me wrong, Woocommerce is appealing to those people that have no or little experience in what is like to run a business online on a daily basis..
It does get quite slow, expensive and not very practical very quickly.. Like others have already mentioned above, Is probably ok for very small business with even smaller requirements.. But I wouldn't trust it as my main source of income for the simple fact that for WooCommerce to work properly, you need Wordpress to work properly and also, that all the other plugins don't create conflicts.. If you then add a third party theme to the mix, It is like working in a company with 30 bosses... Good luck with that...

Burt65 wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:23 am

This thread is terrible...
How did we ended up comparing Wordpress to Opencart???

Then don't reply to it. The OPs question was about whether to use Wordpress or OpenCart for a particular task, and posters here have answered this very question, in attempt to help, which is a good thing.

JNeuhoff wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 5:24 pm

Burt65 wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:23 am

This thread is terrible...
How did we ended up comparing Wordpress to Opencart???

Then don't reply to it. The OPs question was about whether to use Wordpress or OpenCart for a particular task, and posters here have answered this very question, in attempt to help, which is a good thing.

How original... Imagine how good it could be, if you could only push all this negative energy toward something a bit more productive...

How about Worpress and Journal? What ya reckon?
Only kidding.. Please don't answer that...

Burt65 wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 7:30 pm

How about Worpress and Journal? What ya reckon?
Only kidding.. Please don't answer that...

I can feel a very large headache coming on.

Sanjay852 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 10, 2020 4:17 pm

A friend of mine has an online shop... a bit old one, around 7 years or more. It's made on MaxCart but it's not updated and it does not have some of the functions the modern sites have, so I suggested he makes a new one.

My question is which platform is better? WordPress or OpenCart?

The products on the site are around 500. Is this too much for WordPress?

Should we choose OpenCart?

Warm regards

For what it's worth I regret using Opencart and if I was to do it over again would choose WooCommerce (the shopping plugin for Wordpress) every time.

My business is on Opencart and I'm stuck with it now as I have invested thousands in getting developers. My biggest mistake by far was taking the advice of a developer on this forum and buying Journal. I've even had messages from the admins on this forum threatening to ban me for even mentioning Journal. Fairly ironic as I only bought it (yes some people still pay for this), because a well known developer on this forum said to do so.

Here's the easiest analogy for me to explain why I'd go the wordpress/woocommerce route:
Say you buy an American car and bring it to the UK. When the car is new, no problem. But over time you need to get the car serviced only there are no garages that service that make of car. Eventually you find a garage that can service the car, but all the parts have to be imported and that'll take 4 weeks. Then if something breaks on the car like a gearbox, it'll take 6 weeks to get the parts and cost double to get it fixed as there are only a handful of people that are prepared to work on it.

So while the car looks great, drives great etc. owing it becomes painful. Nothing is straightforward and you'll have very limited support as the make isn't known in the country you're driving it.

That American car is like OpenCart. Sure it looks great, fast, responsive etc. But the moment you have an issue there are literally only a handful of people to help you out, even if you're paying for it. If I need something written or modified in wordpress I have hundreds of people who can take the job on and they're significantly cheaper (because there's more of them), than developers who work with OpenCart. Either way learning your way around OpenCart or WooCommerce is a bit painful (especially if like me you've never been on the backend of a site).

Also having now had to work with a payment gateway I've seen that sometimes this integration is a real nightmare. As the payment gateway explained, they have no problem developing extensions or plugins (for free), for WooCommerce and Magento. That's because they're used by so many people and businesses that it's in their own interests to make them available. With OpenCart I had to get that extension written up specially for me, and again maybe only 2 or 3 people could do that. Funny I got a quote from a guy here always bashes Journal and then sends me a private message saying how much he'd like to take on the job for £3000.

If you're happy with OpenCart right out the box and don't plan on having anything special/custom then it's a great way to go. The backend is pretty easy to work out and it's fairly straightforward and easy to learn. It does give you a load of data, analytics and loads of extensions.

But if you're thinking of something that's different from the original then think of the support you could get for something that is used by 70% of businesses. Go to the "commercial support" section of this forum and see for yourself. The same 5 or 6 people respond to every post, same response, every time. There are so few developers that will take on OpenCart and then if you buy a theme they don't like then there's even less. Look up the amount of developers who can modify Wordpress/woocommerce.

Where your site as you say will have 500+ products (I think that's a lot), you're going to need a developer's help for sure or you'll spend your life updating your catalogues. In that instance I'd get some quotes from developers here and then developers that use Wordpress/Magento etc.
If I had known this all beforehand I would never have gone this route, but that's just me and what my business needs.

You could install both and see which you get on with better? They're both open source, just beware with themes! Before buying one first check that even if it is the most sold them for whichever platform that developers are happy working with it. Otherwise like me you find yourself constantly being treated like a naughty child whenever you'd like advice.

My biggest mistake by far was taking the advice of a developer on this forum and buying Journal ...

Well, your biggest Mistake was, to have some Expectations, other than, just getting a nice Piece
of Software for free. A Software, unlike WP, only designed for one single Purpose, namely, to
create Income, in one or the other way. But OC is neither a Gift from the Paradise, nor is it's
Owner an Angel, and the Fact, that some of it's Mods come for free, does still not make OC a Key,
for all the Poor of the World, planning to create some Income with it.

This, also under the Aspect, that, by Example, Journal-Themes belong to the most stolen Code.
And all those Shadow-Runners could/would profit out of the Situation, if/that Journal - related
Assistance would also be offered, likely free of Charge, by Nature of things, here at this Forum.

Compare it with a 'free' Car. Then, one can add 'Options', some for free, and some paid One's. And
then, some expect those, partly sharing their 'Options' for free, to also assist, when it comes, to make
some paid One's work as planned. And if that does not work, one gets pissed, to see his Dreams go
down the drain, and some then complain about bad or non-existent Support and Ignorance...
But not even One out of 100 of them would even think about, to frequently come back here , and
support others as well, that's, what's the Reality, like it or not ...

Strictly from the Business Point of View, this Behaviour only proves, how little Business -Knowledge
and -Instinct most of those People have. Or then, they would not expect such in the first Place. The
Freeriders and Cheapies won't make it anyway, in real Business and Competition, they're, at Best,
adding to unfair Competition.

But that's not OC's Fault, and sure not a Problem of frequent 'free' Supporters. This, to accept,
should not be so hard. It's not a Darknet-Scene here, but a 'regular' Business Place. And if one
can accept this, and 'act' accordingly, starting, by i.E. selecting an already 'known to work' Version,
with an already decent range of Mods, instead of always only running behind the Band-Waggon,
one is able, to build and run a nice working OpenCart Solution, out of free and legal Code.

It's as easy as that. It just needs to be understud. But to blame others, only proves, that one
planned on Believe, one of the worst and most dangerous Ways, to start a Business...

Nothing personal, just my interpretation, of looking at it from a 'Neutral Swiss' angle of view. ....
Ernie

IP_CAM wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 07, 2020 7:17 am

My biggest mistake by far was taking the advice of a developer on this forum and buying Journal ...

Well, your biggest Mistake was, to have some Expectations, other than, just getting a nice Piece
of Software for free. A Software, unlike WP, only designed for one single Purpose, namely, to
create Income, in one or the other way. But OC is neither a Gift from the Paradise, nor is it's
Owner an Angel, and the Fact, that some of it's Mods come for free, does still not make OC a Key,
for all the Poor of the World, planning to create some Income with it.

This, also under the Aspect, that, by Example, Journal-Themes belong to the most stolen Code.
And all those Shadow-Runners could/would profit out of the Situation, if/that Journal - related
Assistance would also be offered, likely free of Charge, by Nature of things, here at this Forum.

Compare it with a 'free' Car. Then, one can add 'Options', some for free, and some paid One's. And
then, some expect those, partly sharing their 'Options' for free, to also assist, when it comes, to make
some paid One's work as planned. And if that does not work, one gets pissed, to see his Dreams go
down the drain, and some then complain about bad or non-existent Support and Ignorance...
But not even One out of 100 of them would even think about, to frequently come back here , and
support others as well, that's, what's the Reality, like it or not ...

Strictly from the Business Point of View, this Behaviour only proves, how little Business -Knowledge
and -Instinct most of those People have. Or then, they would not expect such in the first Place. The
Freeriders and Cheapies won't make it anyway, in real Business and Competition, they're, at Best,
adding to unfair Competition.

But that's not OC's Fault, and sure not a Problem of frequent 'free' Supporters. This, to accept,
should not be so hard. It's not a Darknet-Scene here, but a 'regular' Business Place. And if one
can accept this, and 'act' accordingly, starting, by i.E. selecting an already 'known to work' Version,
with an already decent range of Mods, instead of always only running behind the Band-Waggon,
one is able, to build and run a nice working OpenCart Solution, out of free and legal Code.

It's as easy as that. It just needs to be understud. But to blame others, only proves, that one
planned on Believe, one of the worst and most dangerous Ways, to start a Business...

Nothing personal, just my interpretation, of looking at it from a 'Neutral Swiss' angle of view. ....
Ernie

I've been in business for over 10 years and do pretty well thanks. My business isn't web developing or IT so I employ people to do that. As a business owner it makes sense to understand how my website is built and works. This is essentially the online window to my business. As always you've totally missed the point and jumped to the conclusion that everyone is here for freebies and steals.

My point was that there are far more developers that can work with wordpress/woocommerce/magento than there are developers for opencart. They're over 70% of the e-commerce market for a reason.

How exactly is a newbie supposed to know what a "known to work" version is?

Turns out according to you OC3 is rubbish and we should all stick to OC2.3, thing is nobody tells us that beforehand. You see a "stable" release and get started, to only then find out after building your site that a load of extensions won't work with OC3.

I can only go by the advice of web developers. Mine said try OpenCart and buy Journal. He's the expert, does this for a living and knows best. I listened to the expert and did as he said. It's worked out but been a real struggle, and as I say only a handful of people can work on it. Hundreds and thousands of developers can work on WooCommerce and Magento. So support free or paid for is easier to find on those platforms.

It's worth noting Ernie that you always get so defensive that I find it quite weird to be honest. Nobody here has said that anything was OC's fault (or anyone else's) but as always you get defensive and start telling people about how run a business in the real world. The OP wanted to know the merits of one platform over another and now it's turned into yet another toxic thread for you to impart another useless rant. It's really boring and helps nobody, you must see that?

How was your "neutral" post helped anyone?