Can’t decide between BigCommerce and OpenCart? Find the best platform for you with our side-by-side comparison of BigCommerce vs OpenCart. See how each platform stacks up across ease of use, design, support and value for money. Let the comparison begin. Don’t worry, we’ll guide you to find the one true platform for your store.
Is BigCommerce right for you?
BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform with a number of solutions for small and medium-sized retailers. Custom enterprise plans are also available.
BigCommerce appeals particularly to users with limited development skills because of its usability out-of-the-box. That said, those wishing to make more complex backend changes can do so.
Smaller retailers experiencing growth are also drawn to BigCommerce because of its scalability features. Indeed, the BigCommerce feature-set has everything you would expect, including responsive website templates, shopping cart, and payment integrations, single-page checkout, analytics, and more.
Retailers looking for a fully-hosted solution at a reasonable price point will find BigCommerce appealing. In fact, customer service ratings are consistently high, and BigCommerce customers can take advantage of an active, helpful community of fellow users.
Advantages
- Easy-to-use from the get-go and fully hosted, which removes the hassle of maintaining servers.
- A wide selection of features with regular updates and a diverse add-on market (with many free options).
- No transaction fees for use of popular payment gateways.
Drawbacks
- Some features, like price lists, are only available on the more expensive plans.
- Can be difficult to make extensive design and backend changes.
- Themes and add-ons are often quite expensive.
Thus, use if you are a small to medium-sized retailer with limited development skills (or budget) and expect your store to grow.
Is OpenCart right for you?
OpenCart occupies a unique space in the eCommerce platform market. It’s a free and open-source solution that’s ideal for small and medium retailers that want to exercise full development control on their own servers.
Immediately, this excludes two groups. Firstly, small retailers that want a fully-hosted solution and don’t have coding skills will struggle with OpenCart. Secondly, larger stores, or stores expecting to scale, may find the feature-set somewhat limited. In fact, OpenCart doesn’t have the same functionality and scalability as other open-source platforms like Magento.
If you’re not in either group, however, OpenCart is well worth giving a go. As an open-source solution, it’s fully customizable. Plus, the feature set is pretty solid, and the interface is very intuitive for a self-hosted solution. You’ll also have access to a large user community and extensions library. Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning the key selling point again: it’s free. Read more: Bigcommerce upsell
Advantages
- The platform itself is free.
- Open-source and fully editable for those with web development skills.
- Intuitive and easy to use for a self-hosted platform.
Drawbacks
- Costs for dedicated support and extensions can quickly add up.
- Requires development and IT knowledge to be used effectively.
- Few native marketing and SEO features.
Use OpenCart if you’re a small or medium-sized retailer looking for a self-hosted solution that isn’t going to break the bank. Thus, OpenCart is a streamlined platform with an intuitive dashboard, a solid feature-set, and a friendly, active community of users.
How easy is BigCommerce to use?
BigCommerce is very easy to use. After signing up, you’ll be guided through the process of setting up your store.
You can access essential features from the central BigCommerce dashboard, including product listings, customer information, analytics, app integrations, and more. Once your store is ready to go, day-to-day tasks of managing orders and content can be handled easily through the main interface. Adding new products and running reports are straightforward tasks.
One reason that BigCommerce doesn’t score a straight 10 out of 10 is because designing extra functionality beyond what’s offered directly can be tricky.
How easy is OpenCart to use?
There are two sides to the ease of use question when it comes to OpenCart.
On the one hand, users have access to an intuitive dashboard (which is slightly unusual for an open-source, self-hosted solution) and a large library of extensions.
On the other hand, installing, maintaining, and running a store built on OpenCart requires a certain degree of development experience.
If you’re not comfortable handling backend tasks, then it’s probably not the option for you.
Conclusion
Above are some differences as well as pros and cons of Opencart vs BigCommerce. We hope you have a clear mind on what to choose for your store. If you have any questions, contact us and we will help you to figure it out.
