Prestashop vs. ?

[danielVK]

Dear community,

Right now we are considering software to use for new project. Our main requirement is using open source and free shopping cart. Also second important requirement is constant development of platform.

Presta http://www.prestashop.com
Magento http://www.magentocommerce.com
Axis http://axiscommerce.com
Oscommerce http://oscommerce.com
Opencart http://www.opencart.com

I do understand that presta is best shopping cart but i really want to hear what is pros of using presta.

[svetaines1]

As for me I played with Magento nearly 1 hour and then understood, what it is a little bit to hard for me

With Presta from installing till full change of template it takes nearly few days, so I definitely say choose Presta.
I don't like only few things in Presta (maybe it is my knowledge problem):

- The way how it's handle error (blank white screen). Because of this for people like me (not experts) it is really hard find problem.
- I think it is a little bit to slow (before I use VirtueMart and it was really quick) - but maybe it's my server problem
- Sometimes it's really hard to find help in forum
- No one page checkout option in box
- No product export tool in box

BUT it is really few minuses from my side Now I just almost happy with my choise

After I will have a little bit more time, I will definitely learn Presta deeper and I think I will stay with that platform for long time!

[danielVK]

As for me I played with Magento nearly 1 hour and then understood, what it is a little bit to hard for me

With Presta from installing till full change of template it takes nearly few days, so I definitely say choose Presta.
I don't like only few things in Presta (maybe it is my knowledge problem):

- The way how it's handle error (blank white screen). Because of this for people like me (not experts) it is really hard find problem.
- I think it is a little bit to slow (before I use VirtueMart and it was really quick) - but maybe it's my server problem
- Sometimes it's really hard to find help in forum
- No one page checkout option in box
- No product export tool in box

BUT it is really few minuses from my side Now I just almost happy with my choise

After I will have a little bit more time, I will definitely learn Presta deeper and I think I will stay with that platform for long time!

Thanks for detailed answer. Right now we have installed Presta, Magento and Axis on our servers and performing basic test. According to initial experience Magento provide maximum number of features right out of the box. But setting and editing Presta was really piece of cake. Is there any commercial providers for themes and extension on the market?

[svetaines1]

Yes, there are many I think. One of them:
http://www.templatemonster.com/prestashop-themes.php

What about modules, there are many usefull community modules for free and of course you can buy some from Presta store.

As for me, if you satisfy with basic functionality of store provided in box and you are not developer, then Prestashop is for you

[danielVK]

Yes, there are many I think. One of them:
http://www.templatemonster.com/prestashop-themes.php

What about modules, there are many usefull community modules for free and of course you can buy some from Presta store.

As for me, if you satisfy with basic functionality of store provided in box and you are not developer, then Prestashop is for you

Really had bad experience with Templates Monster themes. We have used both Magento and Zencart themes. Overall code quality was really awful.

[rocky]

As for me I played with Magento nearly 1 hour and then understood, what it is a little bit to hard for me

With Presta from installing till full change of template it takes nearly few days, so I definitely say choose Presta.
I don't like only few things in Presta (maybe it is my knowledge problem):

- The way how it's handle error (blank white screen). Because of this for people like me (not experts) it is really hard find problem.
- I think it is a little bit to slow (before I use VirtueMart and it was really quick) - but maybe it's my server problem
- Sometimes it's really hard to find help in forum
- No one page checkout option in box
- No product export tool in box

BUT it is really few minuses from my side Now I just almost happy with my choise

After I will have a little bit more time, I will definitely learn Presta deeper and I think I will stay with that platform for long time!

- PrestaShop hides error messages by default. You can edit config/config.inc.php and change 'display_errors' to 'on' to display them, which makes it easy to find the cause of problems.

- PrestaShop v1.4 is a lot faster than v1.3. It's been one of the main focuses in the new version.

- PrestaShop v1.4 has a one-page checkout and guest checkout option on the Preferences tab.

- PrestaShop is a free product that relies on the community to answer questions on the forums. No-one is paid to provide support, and most people won't answer any questions unless they are very simple, or they encountered the same issue themselves. I try my best to answer some of the difficult questions when I can. I wish there were more people on the forums to help though, since I can't answer everything myself.

- Product export is a feature request that has been marked as "Confirmed", so it may be added in the future. Unfortunately, PrestaShop v1.4 doesn't have the feature. We will probably have to wait until a later version of PrestaShop.

[aras]

rocky, i just checked and presta has more visitors than zen and opencart ( i didnt check the rest).
I do agree that the amount of question answered should be, judging by visitor numbers, much greater. Maybe it is the language barrier for some....or european mentality..or big number of newbees..?

Anyway, i have actually took the step to prestashop and am happy i took this step. Zencart was good once but, the future is for prestashop and many others have problems of some kind. I cant see yet any problem with presta, beside documentation but that is a matter of time. I saw a member who is making a video training series which looks promising. www.prestatraining.com

whomever started this project, they did a hell of a job.

[jjrmy1]

Seems to me that although presta is opensource you can hardly call their community a community. I'll elaborate. All the 40,000 people using prestashop and there are 2, I repeat, 2 free templates for 1.3 and up! Ok, I'm done with my rant... ummm, no I'm not. What a stingy bunch of followers (french?)!!!! Really... are you kidding me? 610 templates in the download section and 2 of them are free. What ever happened to opensource and its ideaology. You guys were talking about why no one's helping on the forums. It's because all the folks that know what they're doing with this "OPEN SOURCE" package won't so much as fart without getting paid to do so. Now I know all you 40,000 people using his half-open-source software don't have stores that look the same. Why haven't you uploaded your templates to share with the COMMUNITY??
Ok now I'm done

[davet85]

With all due respect jjrmy1, a template takes a long time to develop and the majority of people who design a template will be doing so for a commercial site. Commercial site's have competitors. I run a heavily customised theme on my site, and I know I have competitors running Prestashop, it would be pretty stupid of me to put my theme out in the public domain for a competitor to get their hands on and ruin my competitive advantage. Also as a theme that has evolved over time the coding is nowhere clean enough to be handing over to someone inexperienced, the other nature of being open source is that I would have to provide at least some support on it which I have nowhere near the time to do. I think you're missing part of the point of open source, and you're taking for granted the amount that community does contribute. The number and the quality of free modules available is far above that of other platforms. I have recently been experimenting with other platforms as I require CRM which seems a way off in Presta, and the community's are nowhere near as active. I would also add that there are definitely more than 2 free themes available, you just haven't looked hard enough. There are plenty of themes within the forum that people have created as an experiment and released as a free unsupported download. I suspect the reason that only two of these free themes have made it into the store is because you get people who want everything for free and then kick off when things don't run smoothly or they don't get instant support. A category of person that I get the impression you fall in to.

[aras]

jjrmy....dude. You want people to give you their template? So you can make a site identical to theirs? you can't be serious.
Besides you didnt understand what open source is all about......the " source" is open and free not all the products made for it. The non-opensource are the ones you pay money to be able to use it. I do agree that there should be more documentation and more cooperation, but one can't be as demanding as you are.

I agree with the paid modules etc. This enables the experts to devote themselves to development of this opensource, which will benefit us all.

[jjrmy1]

To davet85 I'm not trying to start an argument and I recognize that some people would be offended by my rant (sorry) but I have not asked for any support nor have I installed any free themes. Yes most of these themes and mods have little bugs and quirks (Including the paid ones) which is all the more reason to put them out there for free. Someone will grab it and fix it (community).
To aras: Yes exactly. So as an alternative I get to pay $250 for a template 20 other people have?? A lot of this stuff you don't even know if you want to run untill you get it installed and see how it works out.
I'm not being demanding. I'm just evaluating sftware before I decide to migrate to it. It's open source, so, yes i'm evaluating the community too.
Besides I just said what other people are thinking. Don't get me wrong... a lot of you guys are great but there are definately some stingy ones.

Cheers

[aras]

jirmy, i have commented on this thread about my opinion that the contribution of the experts on the forum should be much greater than it is right now ( in my first post on this thread). But would you say that we have a better choice (overall)? which one then ?
I know a bit about other platforms and though i am "fresh of the farm" I am pleased with ps from what i have seen . Let us not forget that this platform is very new and people like me and you could change ( the culture ) of things. I will be working on this stuff in the coming weeks and we could change the way we contribute to this platform and others will follow. Though i stress that things should not be free just because it is a opensource, paying for modules and themes etc will encourage the guys who are good at it to contibute more and we'll all benefit.

goodluck to you ( and me lol )

Ps. davet85 what is your site, i think you can reveal that. so we can see the things you have done with it. Be sure that the possible competition already knows about your site. But just examples of what others do with their sites can inspire others and that will benefit you too.

[svetaines1]

What about you Rocky I can say only good things! You saved my life not once! Thank you for that!!!

BUT I also agree with jjrmy1. Maybe it is matter of time, but now for PS almost everything is paid. At the moment it's lack of "must have" functionality and good community modules. Prices for modules are usually to high, but not quality...
At the moment checkout process is big pain. I heard, what Presta 1.4 will bring a little bit of fresh air.

But mostly, everything depends from community. Please share your projects with us. Also prices ... not everyone live in Europe, so maybe sometimes it is better to sell cheaper, but more.

Finally I can say, what at the moment it's is most affordable my used platform and I think what it is matter of time when it become real diamond!

[rocky]

I think starting with PrestaShop v1.4, I can truly recommend PrestaShop as a great platform for e-commerce stores. Unlike some other e-commerce solution, PrestaShop is not table-based, but div-based. I like how it uses strict XHTML 1.1 standards-compliant code. With the new performance optimisations and options, it is fast, and the new MVC and override functions make it easy to extend the code in a way that you don't have to worry about overwriting your changes when you upgrade. It's use of Smarty templates allow much flexibility in modifying the theme. These are the things I think make PrestaShop the best e-commerce solution.

For those who think all modules should be free, I would like to ask, "Are the products on your PrestaShop website free or are you charging for them?" If they were free, how would you make a living off your website? Would you have a second job that does pay or would you use ads to pay for your free products? If you had a second job, would you spend the time to support customers of your free products? If you read through the free module threads in the "Third-party modules" forum, you will see that most are unsupported by the original authors. If you read through the paid module threads in the "Job offers and paid services" forum, you will see that they are usually supported by the original author and new features are being added all the time. The paid modules also tend to be higher quality than the free ones. I think that's why having paid developers is a good thing. It gives them an incentive to write high-quality modules and to support them.