OpenCart vs WooCommerce: Which One Should You Choose and Why?

The days were gone when physical stores used to rule. Now, eCommerce stores have become a huge thing that every other business owner (including you) wants to launch their online store. Right?

Even a report by Statista has shown that by 2024, eCommerce sales will increase by $6.3 billion. Now, that’s huge. Right? Moreover, it mounts the competition bar among various business owners. As a result, they are gravitating towards the website development services by partnering with competent development partners for best website development for their business.

Consequently, many business owners are putting more effort to be on the top but, one thing that confuses them the most is choosing a suitable eCommerce platform.  

There is a diversity of eCommerce platforms that makes it difficult for upcoming store owners to decide. However, OpenCart and WooCommerce are the leading e-commerce platforms that are winning hearts all over. You can either rely on the OpenCart development services or the WooCommerce development services for creating an outstanding eCommerce website. 

It is clear that you have to choose one among both platforms. To make it easier for you all, we have put together a comparison between OpenCart vs WooCommerce, leaving everything on you to decide.

But, before starting with the comparison, let's get to the nitty-gritty of both the eCommerce platforms. 

An Overview of OpenCart vs WooCommerce

OpenCart

OpenCart is online store management based on PHP that lets store owners sell products and services. In other terms, it is a free and open-source eCommerce solution that allows business owners to launch their online store seamlessly. 

In short, the OpenCart platform accesses the source code for modifying the internet store. 

Therefore, if you also want to sell online products or take your store to an advanced level, you can avail the OpenCart development services by hiring a reliable development partner.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform and a WordPress plugin that designs the online store hassle-free. In other words, it converts the WP sites into working internet stores. 

WooCommerce also manages tax management, inventory management, secure payments, and shipping integration. Also, there are numerous pros of WooCommerce, like high scalability, instant setup, simple reporting, etc. 

Thus, if you want to design your online store, hire a reputable WooCommerce development agency or avail of WordPress development services and see how your online business booms. 

A Detailed Comparison Between OpenCart vs WooCommerce

• Ease of Use

The first comparison between WooCommerce vs OpenCart is easy usage. The setup and installation procedure of WooCommerce is easy, where you have to pick any hosting service of your choice.

With just one click, you can install WooCommerce instantly. After the installation, WooCommerce has a setup wizard that will guide you at every step.

Whereas, OpenCart, demands technical knowledge at the initial stage (if you opt for a manual process). 

In other words, the installation of OpenCart is a tiring task where you have to download the software and build a database before beginning the installation process. 

So, here it is crystal clear that WooCommerce is the winner. Therefore, if you want an easy-to-use platform for your eCommerce website development project, it is good to partner with a WooCommerce development company to leverage the benefits of this platform.

• Themes and Design

The other two pros of WooCommerce are an abundant collection of themes and designs. WooCommerce and WordPress have more than 2,100 free themes (and 30k paid themes). 

Do you want business themes, eCommerce themes, SEO-powered themes, or magazine themes? Well, WooCommerce has got everything for you. In short, you have got endless theme options for your online store. Therefore, with custom WooCommerce web development, you will be facilitated with a wide array of themes to choose a relevant one as per your project requirements.

OpenCart also has a good collection of themes that you can use to design your internet store in a unique manner. But, every single OpenCart theme demands CSS and HTML knowledge. 

Moreover, the biggest drawback of OpenCart is that you won't find page builders that might restrict you from making continuous changes in your eCommerce store.

So, who wins? Obviously, WooCommerce! 

• Features

OpenCart has numerous features, like limitless listing, admin dashboard, payment gateways, advanced user management, thousands of extensions, multiple languages, and more. 

Fundamentally, OpenCart has everything to offer for your online store, and it also improvises the existing features (or makes add-ons). 

One of the effective reasons to choose WooCommerce is a feature-rich platform. In other terms, it has a pool of features like a dashboard, user management tools, 1000+ payment gateways, numerous extensions, shipping, and listing options. Moreover, it gets widened when mixed with WordPress themes (and plugins). 

Hence, OpenCart and WooCommerce are both feature-rich eCommerce platforms. Choosing between OpenCart web development or WooCommerce web development depends on your business needs and project requirements. You can compare the features of both to evaluate their suitability for your project. 

• Customization Option

If you are looking for reasons to choose OpenCart, customization is the one. This eCommerce platform has 13000 plus modules (and themes) that allow you to have a different set of options on the product page. 

Also, it has different extension categories, like payment methods, shipping options, marketing, and more.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that automatically gives plenty of extensions for every type of customization. Besides the marketplace, it offers extensions for third-party platforms as well. 

Moreover, WooCommerce has a natural customization process that modifies the store extensively or makes enough tweaks. 

• SEO Capabilities

One of the powerful reasons to choose WooCommerce is its SEO capabilities. 

As discussed above, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin with several SEO advantages over any other content management system. That means, WooCommerce automatically gets all the effective SEO capabilities.  

OpenCart, on the other hand, does not support SEO expansively, although it offers meta titles, descriptions, and tags. However, if you would like to measure the depth of SEO capabilities in OpenCart, you must know coding fluently. 

Therefore, in this situation, WooCommerce development services are more suitable for your business as you can get a highly SEO-friendly eCommerce website.

• Pricing

Since WooCommerce is an open-source platform. That means it is free and you don't have to pay any upfront cost. However, good things never come for free. 

Similarly, WooCommrce also won't let you enjoy everything without spending a single penny. For instance, you have to pay for web hosting or premium themes (and extensions). 

Likewise, OpenCart is also an open-source eCommerce platform that lets you download it for free directly from their website. 

The pricing structure of OpenCart is similar to WooCommerce, where again, you have to take a subscription for premium themes (or extensions). 

Therefore, it's a tie between the two. So, if you are looking for a cost-effective solution, you can choose either between WooCommerce web development or OpenCart web development. Moreover, the website development cost majorly depends on your project requisites.

• Security

After reading all the reasons to choose WooCommerce and OpenCart, we are left with security (one of the crucial reasons). 

OpenCart has, by default, a fraud tool accessory that detects the threat instantly from the dashboard. Moreover, it has an extension that extends the security measures more, and most importantly, it has SSL encryption and secured payment gateways. 

Similarly, WooCommerce uses SSL encryption and mainstream payment gateways that make it a safe (and secure) platform. It also covers two-factor authentication (2FA), data encryption, and more. 

Concluding Thoughts

So, finally, I have made the comparison between OpenCart vs WooCommerce. Now, it's your turn to pick between the two.

However, I would say one thing to you after reading all the reasons to choose OpenCart and WooCommerce, focus on your business needs, goals, and budget. 

This way, you can pick the best (and the most suitable) platform for your online store.