My recent experience with osCommerce was not pleasant. In my effort to modify a few details in the scripts/modules of an ecommerce site, I realized what a joke osCommerce is.
1. osCommerce lacks a client-side theme system
Unlike most other blogging, CMS, and ecommerce scripts, osCommerce has absolutely no involvement with theme integration. If a developer wants to customize the look of osCommerce, he would need to hack every piece of code in the files. This includes reading scripts and understanding exactly how the whole system works. All HTML tags are inserted right into classes and functions. Editting one piece of code means editting everything else.
2. osCommerce does not have a well implemented OOP structure
Since reading through every script is required to modify anything, having a clear OOP structure would help. Indeed osCommerce does use classes, but the benefits are completely retarded by the structure. Many classes are duplicates (but different) of each other, and different scripts use all these classes for the same purposes. Most products/category selections are done through handcoded SQL queries that use global SQL functions. The internal structure of osCommerce is an utter mess.
3. Installing modules means editting osCommerce files
Modules are good for extending its capabilities, but installing a module means opening up an osCommerce file, go to the n’th line, copy and paste from the downloaded script. Most of the times this won’t work because to have a customized site, the scripts are completely hacked up already — all the line numbers and used functions are mismatched. Then comes the process of using a file comparison tool. Isn’t that a fun way of installing modules.
5. osCommerce is very outdated
While I’m not criticizing osCommerce for its lack of frequent updates (by frequent, I mean at least one minor update per year) since it is dependent on contributors, it is definitely unsuitable for any active ecommerce site. The lack of updates means a very outdated system of everything, including inefficient coding and of course vulnerabilities.
Alternatives?
Zen Cart is exactly the opposite of everything listed above. I looked through some of the code in Zen Cart, and I just wished I had found out about it much earlier. So there you go, don’t every take osCommerce into consideration for an ecommerce site.
i think i’ve seen the oscommerce installation in my fantastico, i’d dislike the site if it’s lack of updates [like when i used blogsome, the members didn’t seem to get a good answers from the web-developers, no wiki as wp.org has [coz the tags in blogsome are different than the original wp which i dont understand so i was trying to find out if they have made a wiki page or if they’ve helped the members on their forum but unfortunately, the don’t seem to care]
Fourth reason got lost in the void.
I work with oscommerce occasionally for clients who want features added. Sometimes modules exist, sometimes they don’t, but it’s like a root canal every time.
I want to puke everytime I look at the codebase.
its template system is very poor… i never saw such a script which sucks with older mysql db queries.. which is not faster and smarter… :( see Zencart how great it is…
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[…] Scouring the Internet I found that I am not the only one who thinks osCommerce is terrible. There is an article called 5 Reasons Why osCommerce Sucks that Google helped me locate. Everything this guy says it totally true. Upon his recommendation I took a look at ZenCart. […]
I hate to tell you but Zen Cart pretty much sucks too.
It lacks support and they can’t seem to get the updates and bug fixes right.
I’ve had quite a bit of exposure to Zen cart as well and have to say, that at first glance it looks pretty good, but trying find some help is next to impossible… And it has some pretty old pretty major bugs. Fix them already!
I REALLY HATE OSCommerce! I agree with the comment about the root canal. Maybe throw in an upper colonic to boot. I have used ecommerce templates from http://www.ecommercetemplates.com/ for the past 2 years and have found them to be VERY easy to modify and their support and update regularity is excellent.
Anyone ever try Cubecart? I’m thinking of using Zen cart unless Cubecart is good. Anyone?
I totally agree. I have been suffering trying to implement features for a client (first time customizing oscommerce.) The longest which took me almost 8 hours, was completely useless after I understood what it truly perfomed! I am stunned that setting up shipping zones is also useless (it appears I can only setup zone rates for one zone???)
Thanks for the tip on Zen Cart (I’ll be looking into it.)
If you’re interested in alternatives, especially ones written in python, you should check out satchmo (http://www.satchmoproject.com). We’ve come a long way so far and it is being used for production sites.
Satchmo definitely solves #1, #2 and #5. #3 is minimized but we do have a slightly different philosophy.
http://magentocommerce.com
Enough said.
I’m looking forward to magento, too.
OsCommerce is a “nice effort”, but lacks involvement of people with REAL technical background.
Many interesting plugins have far from “ok” code.
Everytime I look at the code, I feel like I’m being in 1999 again, doing crappy PHP code for an internship.
The problem is that the community lacks tools for the developers.
The support forums are plagued (no hard feelings) with users without a clue of what a php file is.
Hence, real exchange between PHP aware developers are lost in the maelstrom of people asking for someone to lace their shoes.
I would steer people away from Zen Cart as well. I actually found this post whilst searching for “zen cart sucks” to blow off some steam after I discovered that two bits of “modular” (heh heh) functionality I need both store their results using the SAME VARIABLE NAME with no semblance of namespacing. So now I have to work around that in addition to the incessant tinkering I’ll need to do because everything in ZC is all tangled together with no consideration given to extensibility or anything apart from its out-of-the-box functionality.
Everything is “abstracted” out into different files to break up the code, but they’re all so inter-related that you basically have to waste time hunting all those files down because you need to edit all of them to make any changes anyway. “Require” statements paste entire sets of features into an already bloated codebase and serve only to thwart your editor’s Find utility.
Whew, I feel better now. Time to dive back in, I suppose.
i totall agree with you OS Commerce sucks big time bad program design and stuff . TSK.
dont use oscommerce. The code is garbage. Ever tried hammering a nail into a wall with an elastic band.. yeh you’ll spend hours only to find you should of saved the time and brought a hammer.
If you enjoy spending years looking for that class taht relates to that include that relates to that define in that module somewhere then oscommerce is like partyland for you….. always a delight…
imagine telling your client it will take 2 days to change the text on an email footer… once you can find it that is!
magento is also overbloated..zencart is a fork but hey id rather use chopsticks….. x-cart hmm why not pay for a version as bloated as oscommerce….
i say cs-cart ftw!
oh my god i feel so much better know ok now back to that application_top.php so i can change something to do with the shopping cart code.
And I still can’t fix the freaking broken images problem!
What about Interspire Shopping Cart?
http://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart/