Shopping Cart Software

[Hal Burgiss]

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:15:20AM -0500, Kipton Moravec wrote:
> I want to build a simple eCommerce Website for maybe 10 products.

[...]
 
> What SW that goes on a Ubuntu Server would you recommend, that lets
> people sign in and place an order?

The best all around open source e-commerce solution right now is Drupal +
Ubercart. Ubercart is actually a Drupal module that requires separate
installation. Drupal is in the repos. Completely open source, very actively
developed, many third party modules, full content management and site
development backend. This has many of the more common requirements met as to
payment processing and shipping (the two biggest headaches IMO of shopping
cart development).

Other open source projects to consider:

 - osCommerce, the great grandaddy of open source e-commerce
 - Zencart, an improved table-less/xhtml fork of osCommerce
 - Magento, has free/open plus a paid upgrade option.

Also, Wordpress has an ecommerce plugin that works fairly well if you only
have a few products. It is short on payment options and shipping options and
doesn't have nearly the number of shopping cart features as the others. But
less complexity sometimes makes it easier to get your head around. The css
sucks though.  

I disagree with another poster that writing a shopping cart from scratch is
worth considering. There are too many interconnected pieces and too many
security related headaches to even consider it unless a) you have a whole lot
of time on your hands, b) you consider yourself something more than just
plain competent in your programming language of choice, c) you will never need
support or help, and the existing free stuff just does not meet your needs. 

-- 
Hal