I am setting up osCommerce for a client’s online shop. I’ve never used it before, so it’s an interesting experience. So far my feelings are mixed.
The good:
- Easy to install
- Feature rich
- Thousand packages to extend it
The bad:
- New releases are rare (last release was in July 2003). Forked projects have emerged.
- Packages are hard to install (requires manual merge of multiple files)
- It’s hard to change the layout
In any case it’s an admirable project. Thousand online shops use it and that must count for something!
I’ve used osCommerce in the past. I found those same negatives drove me to move all my clients to a forked project called Zen-Cart. It’s basically the same software, but they’ve actually been updating and improving it for the past few years. There’s a ton of add-ons and themes as well. Also, the support communitee behind it is much more active and helpful.
Comment by Jon Trainer — September 8, 2005 @ 16:47
Yep I know Zen-Cart, I even linked to it on the “forked projects” bullet. But for some reason I was afraid of the 400+ contributions as opposed to 2800+ of osCommerce… Also osCommerce has a lot more live shops under its belt (4000+ vs. 500+)…
Comment by Dimitris Giannitsaros — September 8, 2005 @ 17:05