To maintain a sustainable presence for small to medium companies on the marketplace today (and tomorrow), creating an online presence for products or services is an absolute must.

At first glance, the leading ecommerce platform might look like a huge monthly or annual bill. Luckily, there are numerous open source ecommerce platform with an attractive price tag (many of them are free!), and customisability, scalability and community support which is not always found in company solutions.

Obviously, it might be an easy decision for your company to use a free open source ecommerce platform to run your online business when you are trying to get your feet wet on the Internet market. Nonetheless, it will be much harder to choose the best open source e-commerce platform. We have all their different strengths and weaknesses, after all.

But don’t be afraid because, as in this post, we are going to introduce you to ten open-source eCommerce platforms, both popular and useful:

1. WooCommerce (WordPress)

WordPress, which is largely consider as WordPress ‘ leading open-source ecommerce site, boasts a strong and rising user community. Its seamless integration with WordPress makes it easy for retailers like Cupcake Studio and EcoKitty to install and maintain, and that is one of the key reasons for choosing its open source eccommerce platform.

WooCommerce’s mobile friendliness makes it an attractive choice for brands to satisfy the increasing number of customers who make use of their tablet or smartphone. Yes, the platform allows brands to create a mobile app for their shops by downloading a supplement.

Because WooCommerce can only be used with WordPress, it is not perhaps for retailers and brands the most appealing solution. The scalability provided by WooCommerce makes it especially appealing for those who already use WordPress. As you might suppose, however, paid extensions are require to get the most out of e-commerce.

2. Jigoshop (WordPress)

Jigoshop is another WordPress-based solution which has gained momentum. The platform is quite lightweight alone like most other e-commerce solutions. Themes, plugins and enhancements can be bought for retailers who want to get the most from their storefront.

Jigoshop is very simple to use –with a significant exception, just like WooCommerce. You can’t link software variations; that is, you can’t just mean blue as the color of all colors if you were selling t-shirts in all different colors. You’d have to build a “blue tiny” option, then a “blue big” option, and so on.

Most of all Jigoshop comes with is really simple but you can purchase upgrades. In the end, this shop will have as much use as you can afford to give it.

3. VirtueMart (Joomla)

As Joomla’s most-use ecommerce extension, VirtueMart makes it a breeze to get the website up and running. The multi-language capability makes it an attractive choice for retailers catering to a global audience as consumers can read product descriptions in their mother tongue.

VirtueMart is SEO friendly, which if use properly could potentially push more organic traffic to the storefront. This simple, lightweight ecommerce solution also offers the capabilities for invoicing and inventory management.

Although VirtueMart lacks all of its competitors ‘ features, its easy integration with Joomla makes it a popular choice.

4. Drupal Commerce (Drupal)

Drupal Commerce is both versatile and SEO-friendly, as one of my most popular open source ecommerce platforms among Drupal users. This features an easy-to-use management system, and can accommodate some of the more complicated payment models, such as subscription-based ones.

Just as WooCommerce is WordPress exclusive and VirtueMart is Joomla exclusive, so Drupal Commerce can only be used with Drupal. It’s very straightforward right out of the box, but they sell a “Commerce Kickstart” kit that gives you the most common add-ons for a good start..

Whether you are searching for a simple ecommerce solution, or one you can overwhelm with third-party add-ons, Drupal Commerce is a viable solution as long as you use Drupal as your content management framework. The usability and customizability make it the ideal option for retailers such as Lush.

5. 3D Cart

3dcart is a strong online store builder and ecommerce solution providing an impressive list of features for those pursuing online business transactions. If you’re on the hunt to give your store an outstanding forum, this is a great product to consider. They offer a free trial of 15 days, which allows you to play around with their excellent program to see if it suits your needs. 3dCart is definitely a solid option to consider with 24/7 free premium technical support, quick setup and no transaction fees.

Its plans range from a very fair $19.99/month to $129.99/month and basically there is a package for every kind of customer that you might find.