PrestaShop vs Zen Cart: Choosing Your Right E-commerce Platform

PrestaShop vs Zen Cart: E-commerce Platform Comparison

Which between Prestashop and Zen cart is the best for my website?

Platform overview

In order to help you choose the most convenient solution for your online business, let's look at some basic information about the two ecommerce platforms.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is simply a France founded open-source ecommerce platform that was incepted in 2005 and currently being used by hundreds of thousands of online stores globally. Benefits of choosing PrestaShop are many including

  1. Highly customizable and tremendous functionality
  2. Excellent for all types of businesses i.e. small, medium and large
  3. Enables setting up of multiple online stores and managing them from one administration panel
  4. Translated into more than 75 languages giving businesses an opportunity to operate internationally hassle-free
  5. User- friendly and highly scalable making it possible for online businesses to offer a shopping experience that fully meets their customers' needs and expectations
  6. Boasts incredible features like out of stock alerts and item tracking among others
  7. Comes with enhanced SEO capabilities including management of URLs, descriptions, and Meta titles

Zen Cart

Zen cart is one of the first ecommerce platforms. The free and open-source ecommerce platform that has a hugely active online community following was established in 2003. Other than being free to download, Zen Cart is highly customizable and distributed under GPL2 a renowned software license, its ideal for sellers with access to tech support and its best suited for medium and large businesses only.

Zen Cart key features:

  1. Customized e-commerce shopping cart
  2. Supports numerous payment gateways
  3. Offers different templates for easy customization of your store
  4. Detailed descriptions of products, including pricing and images
  5. Various coupon codes or discounts
  6. Banners and advertisements to promote goods
  7. Multi-tier and promotional pricing
  8. Newsletter functionality
  9. Meta tags for your products
  10. Stock management
  11. Product reviews
  12. Thumbnail creation
  13. Gift certificates
  14. Report generation

Comparing PrestaShop Vs Zen Cart

Technical requirements

All ecommerce platforms have their own unique technical configurations that enable them to function appropriately. The latest PrestaShop version comes with the following technical requirements:

  1. Supported databases: MySQL (min 5.0 version, recommended - 5.6 or newer).
  2. Source code: PHP 7.1 or newer.
  3. Supported web server: Apache Web Server (recommended 2.2 or newer).
  4. Supported operating system: Windows, Mac, and Linux
  5. Supported browsers: dependent on the installed theme
  6. Hosting: self-hosted and the most popular hosting providers are BlueHost, SiteGround, and A2 among others.

Zen Cart, on the other hand, comes with its own technical requirements that include:

  1. Source code: PHP 5.5 to PHP 7.3
  2. PHP Modules used by Zen Cart are: curl, mysqli and zlib.
  3. Requires CURL to be installed into PHP with OpenSSL
  4. Supported databases: MySQL 5.1 to 5.7,
  5. Supported web server is Apache webserver (recommended 2.4 or 2.2)
  6. Supported operating system: Linux, Windows, and macOS
  7. Supported browsers depend on the installed theme.

Hosting & hosting plans

Hosting matters a lot when choosing the most suitable e-commerce platform for your online store. Each platform has its own advantages and disadvantages which can impact on your business. In terms of hosting and hosting plans, using PrestaShop requires that you take full control of your online store's web hosting. Alternatively, you can hire PrestaShop developers to do it for you professionally if you're not conversant with BlueHost, A2, Liquid web, SiteGround, and InMotion.

Zen Cart hosting, on the other hand, can be operated on any host either manually or through Softaculous.It boasts minimal requirements that any Linus-based web hosts must meet. For effectiveness, you must have a server that runs on a LAMP pack comprising of a Linus operating system, support for PHP & MySQL and Apache webserver. Most popular hosts suitable for Zen Cart include Siteground, Webhosting Hub, and A2 Hosting.

Cost

Custom development cost

For your online business to flourish, you have to make the right choices in terms of e-commerce platforms. It is extremely important to go for a platform that will add more value to your business. The best thing to do when you're unsure of your next step is to hire reputable PrestaShop developers or Zen cart developers at competitive rates. Prestashop development company rates vary according to the qualifications of developers as well as regions. It costs less to develop PrestaShop in South America and Asia as compared to other places such as the US, and the UK.

When it comes to Zen Cart development rates, it all depends on the project's features and the country in which you operate from, products challenges, preferences and customer requirements. Generally, both e-commerce platforms development costs are influenced by various factors such as hourly rates, region, developers experience and customer needs.

Platforms cost

In terms of platform cost both PrestaShop and Zen Cart require extra payments for preferred add-ons, modules, themes, and extensions. Hiring professional designers and developers will obviously cost money but its worth if you want to improve your online store's website and consumer's experience.

Customization possibilities

Whilst both e-commerce platforms are customizable, it all depends on your personal preferences. Both platforms provide paid or free modules, extensions and templates for professional designs, but they have their differences.

PrestaShop customization

This incredible e-commerce platform allows PrestaShop developers to improve or change PHP source code to create preferred settings for your ebusiness as well as improve its functionality through extensions and modules. Fascinatingly; Prestashop modules are about 4,000 and categorized under 10 groups :

  1. Design & Navigation
  2. Product Page
  3. Traffic & Marketplaces
  4. Facebook & Social Networks
  5. Promotions & Marketing
  6. Shipping & Logistics
  7. Customers
  8. Payment
  9. Specialized Platforms
  10. Administration

Additionally, PrestaShop offers a wide range of templates categories including

  1. Fashion & Shoes
  2. Food & Restaurant
  3. Electronics & Computers
  4. Home & Garden
  5. Drink & Tobacco
  6. Health & Beauty
  7. Jewelry & Accessories

Zen Cart customization

Zen Cart customization requires proper use of the available Zen Cart integrations and add-ons for improved functionality and experience. Common Zen Cart add-ons and integrations include:

  1. Admin Tools
  2. Language Packs
  3. Buttons and Graphics
  4. Marketing Tools
  5. Privacy and Conditions Statements
  6. Payment Modules
  7. Other Modules (Miscellaneous Plugins)
  8. Pricing Tools
  9. Shipping Modules
  10. Product Types
  11. Side boxes
  12. Template Packages i.e. Responsive Design and Legacy
  13. Troubleshooting Tools
  14. Geographic Zones
  15. Template Alterations

Multi-language capabilities

Choosing an e-commerce platform that has multilingual capabilities is imperative for your online store to flourish. Multi-language capabilities give you the opportunity to build multiple stores and manage them easily. Comparing PrestaShop and Zen Cart in terms of their Multilanguage configuration puts the former ahead of the latter. In short, PrestaShop has a multi-language capability of 75 languages, works excellently in more than 45 countries and 130 currencies against Zen Cart's 25 languages.

Payment gateways support

Both e-commerce platforms support various payment gateways for better customer's experience. PrestaShop supports Authorize.Net AIM, Barclaycard CPI, Authorize.Net SIM, Barclaycard MPI, HSBC CPI, HSBC API, PayPal Standard, Stripe, Skrill, PayPal Pro, Offline processing, WorldPay and Offline methods.

ZENCHART supports: Authorize. Authorize.Net SIM, Net AIM, PayPal Standard. Skrill, Stripe, PayPal Payflow Pro (free add-on), PayPal Pro, Sage Pay Direct, WorldPay, Offline processing (free add-on), USAePay, and Offline methods.

PrestaShop vs. Zen Cart - which is better?

Whilst both platforms are great for taking your business to the next level, PrestaShop emerges as the better option to Zen Cart in all aspects. Look for a trustworthy PrestaShop development company to get high-quality PrestaShop development services.


References

  1. ๐Ÿ”— Google scholar
  2. ๐Ÿ”— Wikipedia
  3. ๐Ÿ”— NyTimes