Zen Cart Review

PROS: Setting up Zen Cart on our site is very seamless. We've faced almost no inconveniences along the way.

CONS: I only used it for a while, and I haven't tried ultimately integrating it on our site. Although, I have nothing to rumble about Zen Cart.

PROS: Free but has so many cool options for personalization. As a big bonus, it also has an excellent community for support.

CONS: Zen Cart is a handy webshop tool. But it is somehow difficult to use because of its seemingly outdated interface design.

PROS: Configuration, application, and use are all easy and smooth. It is also perfectly compatible with many hosting service options today.

CONS: Its technical aspect isn't that smooth to use. We need to do some complicated tweaks to make it work.

PROS: An open-source and free cart that fits our online shop. It is also very flexible because it is easy to personalize according to our demands. Our staff hasn't experienced any troubles when tweaking the platform.

CONS: It is hard to run and use at the start. Thankfully, we've eventually learned how to optimize its use easily.

PROS: Zen Cart is a popular and long-running online shopping cart. It can cater to various payment options, compatible with multiple web hosting services, and has lots of themes and integration for easy personalization without using codes. It is also available for free download and is an open-source platform, meaning you can grab its source code for making some changes. Zen Cart also has a great community as support, and it is easy to access its documentation on the official site.

CONS: Zen Cart has a very complex UI that is hard to learn for newbie users. Its high-level functions also demand a considerable amount of technical skills, such as setting up the online shop security. But these are not large issues, considering that Zen Cart is free and has lots of powerful functionalities.

PROS: Cool e-commerce cart that is very intuitive and easy to use. Zen Cart helps me create a functional and reliable online shop.

CONS: Zen Cart lacks features that make it functional. Additional options for pulling off specific tasks would also be helpful.

PROS: The developers are quite adept at coding, but as is with most open source carts they would rather code the cart than document the logic, processes and procedures properly. Fast and easy to Install, Plugins and modules are a breeze to install, and the shipping with UPS, USPS and FedEx modules actually work very well, albeit some are legacy and apply older functions than what the carriers have progressed into. Payment module for Paypal still utilizes Soap and remains very operational but not able to utilize some very nice, simple functionality such as PayPal's Pay Later blurb, which is an excellent "window shopper to buyer" conversion tool. Lay-Away features, another excellent conversion concept, Lay-By (Lay-Buys) won't work for your Lay-Away plan, but there are other Lay-away Module options you can check out. Not as nice and easy to work with as another Open Source cart's customer interface presentation, but they have free, working templates compared to the others buy and fail extensions. Support is a bit above typical, even though it's just another forum where you can only hope to get solutions to any of the many inadequately documented features and functions, I get the feeling so far the contributors really want to help solve problems and there doesn't seem to be many of those "contributors" you find on the other cart guys that are high on themselves and treat you disrespectfully and down right rudely, thinking they are a gift to you and want to make sure you're absolutely aware they're doing this free and only give a bit of information (Out of the kindness in their hearts) and if you want all of it to contact them with your payment information Over all, this is hands down the best Open Source cart I have researched thus far and I recommend it first.

CONS: Documentation is a shortcoming, much of it is nothing more than a reflection of the menu's you see in the admin panel, no added information or logic of the feature/function to help you determine the best selection for your use. There a places in the configs that it's extremely difficult to determine the intent for and no offer of the logic or what the feature option are....do you put in text, numbers a 1 a 0 a 2 ????? What would whatever the entry is, do? Some of those free templates will destroy your current site, make absolutely sure you copy the entire cart as a straight-forward backup before trying to install one. An expensive lesson learned by yours truly.

PROS: This is a free and open-source platform that lets you accomplish many things on your online shop. It receives security patches regularly, has great support community, and has big contribution records as stated in its documentation. You won't have difficulties looking for a technical expert that can configure it for you as well.

CONS: Insufficient cool and quality themes or templates. There are some but they are not enough. This part should be developed for improvements in the platform.

PROS: It offers almost any plugins that I need, and it is easy to configure for a beginner like myself. It also lets me add or remove any products conveniently. Plus, its admin dashboard offers plenty of vital information, such as the number of onsite visitors, how long each stays, and the number of pages they view. I haven't experienced any hassle when setting up payment gateways and shipping options too.

CONS: It doesn't carry a granular tax report feature. For example, the tool doesn't let me create tax reports according to Zip Code or county, among other factors. Such a feature is helpful for tax reporting here in Florida.

PROS: Being an open-source is already a significant benefit that Zen Cart offers. It is easy to customize and configure with the use of only a few PHP codes too.

CONS: The support service isn't that great. Although, I understand that open source platforms cannot provide a stellar support service.

PROS: I have been using this for almost a decade, and I still trust this for some online shops. It has come as a big revolution from its predecessor but is a lot more powerful in terms of functionalities. I haven't experienced difficulties when starting to use Zen Cart too. I only need to download the app and install it to begin setting up my hosted shared account or own server. Moreover, I've observed how the platform has improved a lot through the many years of using it. It is now an all in one online shopping cart solution with a flexible payment tool and dependable shipping management. I can also use any price format, such as discounts, holiday packages, cross-selling, and paid premium services and add-ons. Zen Cart also has many useful free integrations that are easy to use, as long as you have knowledge about PHP and follow the guide accordingly. One of the biggest problems of Zen Cart, however, is its seemingly daunting functionality for newbies. Thankfully, there is a whole community of developers and users of this open-source platform. They are all willing to help anybody anytime. The people in the support community have enough information about the entire platform and new updates as well. This makes an active thread for updates to become possible. Zen Cart also has some problems in terms of responsiveness of interface because its design runs on a table system encoded through CSS. However, it was solved with the developers' help in the community, which has become obvious with the release of mobile first.

CONS: Zen Cart doesn't have a plugin for Bootstrap even after its significant updates. Instead, its design is running on Foundation. The default responsive template also lacks many capabilities. This pushes users to configure the template using programming codes, especially that it doesn't let users drag blocks on a visual interface. Upgrading the platform is also a problem since it has a lot of modules. Moreover, in some instances, it demands you to tinker with the codes when setting up new features. This is somehow consuming a tremendous amount of time for me to complete. And I have noticed that some developers in the community don't answer some questions. This happens because some of them are developers that are paid to do their work. Thus they don't share some information with others.

PROS: Zen Cart is backed by a vibrant and helpful community of users and developers. They help me learn many things about using the platform. The tool itself is easy to customize too.

CONS: Zen Cart has no technical support service. That could be helpful when I encounter some problems that the people in the community cannot address.