According to the most recent eCommerce statistics provided by Keywords Everywhere, around 2,685 new stores were launched daily between 2023 and 2024, with an estimated 3,500 to 4,000 new WooCommerce sites launched daily. Along with the steady growth of WooCommerce websites, there are many OpenCart-based projects, where merchants prefer taking complete control over their web stores and data and enjoy the platform’s cost-effectiveness and a plethora of other benefits.
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If you are about to create an online store and hesitate over which platform to choose, this article will guide you through a handy OpenCart vs WooCommerce comparison. We’ll help you decide on the best platform for your web store based on functionality, cost, and usability. We’ll also review several WordPress WooCommerce themes and OpenCart templates to give you a better idea about the functional side of both solutions.
WooCommerce vs OpenCart Overview & Key Specifications
Let’s begin our WooCommerce vs OpenCart comparison with the basic definitions and core specifications overview.
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin launched in 2011 to help businesses transform their websites into eCommerce sites. WooCommerce is a handy choice for small to medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs, and those already using WordPress, looking to achieve fast results while building good-looking, feature-rich stores with minimal investment. It’s a better choice for businesses that feel comfortable with a certain degree of technical customization and those who prefer flexibility over simplicity for their stores.
In 2008, OpenCart was launched as an independent PHP platform focused solely on building eCommerce projects. It is best suited for beginners, entrepreneurs, and medium-sized businesses that need to launch their web stores quickly and affordably. It’s the preferred platform for companies looking for a customizable, open-course platform that doesn’t require advanced features, built-in SEO tools, or bulk editing functionality.
WooCommerce is a more widely used solution for WordPress businesses that need a quick starting point for starting stores or enhancing their current projects with eCommerce functionality. OpenCart is better suited for eCommerce-specific projects. It’s more technology-oriented and will suit those who need to tweak the technical side of their websites and take complete control of their functionality.
WooCommerce vs OpenCart Installation & Usability
Installing a web platform is the very first touch point you and your business will help with the chosen eCommerce solution. That is why, it’s important to clearly realize the amount of resources that you and your team have and the technical skills you possess to install the platform and manage your website.
Speaking about WooCommerce, it’s a more beginner-friendly solution. The plugin installs on WordPress in a few clicks. Right after installation, you get access to an intuitive admin panel where you can work without any advanced technical skills.
OpenCart is more complex, so you need to be more technically skilled to install and manage it. It requires manual installation and requires working with RTP and phpMyAdmin, which makes it less beginner-friendly. Thus, if you know how to work with the code, OpenCart is your choice.
WooCommerce vs OpenCart Themes & Customization
You can find multiple ready-made designs compatible with both platforms. However, before using any of them, learn the difference.
By choosing WooCommerce, you get access to over 11,000 free, ready-made themes for diverse topics and purposes. Most of these ready-made designs are easy to use and edit, with no coding required. Many WordPress WooCommerce themes are beginner-friendly and support advanced customization via plugins and extensions. By using Gutenberg and Elementor, you can edit your website’s content and modify pages intuitively, without changing a line of code.
OpenCart themes work differently. The number of free OpenCart eCommerce designs is smaller; about 500 are available. Similar to the OpenCart installation requirements, you often need to apply your HTML/CSS or PHP skills to apply the necessary customizations to the chosen design.
If you are looking for premium designs for your web store, consider checking out the MonsterONE subscription service and the collection of over 550,000 premium digital assets. The selection of designs grows continuously, which means that, by subscribing to the service today, you get unlimited access to all products added to the inventory tomorrow and beyond, for as long as your plan is valid.
With MonsterONE, you get access to the best WooCommerce themes and professionally designed OpenCart templates, all of which are available to you for unlimited access. What’s more, using the promo code “newoffersee”, you get a 10% discount on any MonsterONE plan.
Compare the pricing and grab the preferred subscription plan 10% off!
That said, let’s review premium WooCommerce and OpenCart themes included in the MonsterONE subscription service.
Best WooCommerce Themes Showcase
Cosmaxi Beauty and Cosmetics Store WooCommerce Theme
Cosmaxi is one of the best WooCommerce themes for beauty and cosmetics stores. It features a clean, well-balanced design that draws users’ attention to the highlighted products and promoted deals. The theme is fully optimized for launching conversion-oriented web stores. Fast product viewing, advanced filters, and secure checkout are included to increase eCommerce sales. The fully responsive and speed-optimized theme layout is also SEO-friendly and cross-browser compatible.
FLUX – Game Store WooCommerce Theme + RTL
FLUX comes next on our listed of the recommended premium WooCommerce themes. This is a splendid solution for launching game stores. The theme is integrated with the IGDB (Internet Game Database) API, allowing you to import full game data to your web store with a few clicks. Besides, the theme includes features that will boost your store’s usability and increase sales. Specifically, the FLUX theme includes a wishlist system, an AJAX-powered search, advanced product filters, a custom discount system, etc. The theme is lightweight and fully responsive. If also supports RTL languages, letting you expand the market reach.
Toolgear Tools Parts and Equipment WooCommerce Multipurpose Theme
While looking for the fastest WooCommerce themes for tools and equipment online stores, consider checking out the Toolgear design. This modern and versatile WooCommerce web design lets you build a store that customers will enjoy using and trust. The theme includes multiple layout options that you can edit in a drag-and-drop interface and adjust to fit your brand’s specifications. The Toolgear theme is fully responsive and mobile-friendly. It is SEO-friendly and optimized for speed. It integrates a range of features to boost eCommerce sales, including Quick View, Wishlist, Compare, and advanced product filtering.
Spicenest Morden Kitchen Store Responsive WooCommerce Theme
Spicenest is the ultimate choice if you want to create an online store for modern kitchen appliances. Featuring the Revolution Slider support, the theme lets you showcase your store’s featured products and best-selling items with style. The theme is fully editable and includes Unlimited Elements, letting you customize layouts the way you like and showcase your products in a way that appeals to your customers and emphasizes your brand’s unique style. The theme is cross-browser compatible and Retina-ready.
CamPro Travel & Adventure Store WooCommerce Theme
CamPro is one of the best WooCommerce themes for tourism-related stores. With its help, you can easily launch an eCommerce site that sells camping gear, backpacks, hiking clothes, footwear, etc. The theme features an intuitive customizer, allowing you to modify colors, fonts, and layout elements placement without touching the code. The fully responsive theme’s layout ensures all products and web store functionality will look and feel great across devices. The theme is easy to manage without any extra help. Whenever you have questions or need assistance, refer to the detailed documentation or contact support.
OpenCart Themes for eCommerce Businesses
Beautify Beauty, Fashion and Cosmetic Responsive OpenCart 4 Theme
When working on an OpenCart-based beauty store, consider checking out the Beautify theme. This is a visually stunning and feature-rich premium OpenCart theme ideally suited for cosmetics, beauty, and fashion industries. It features a responsive design, which makes your products look good across all types of desktop and handheld devices. The theme includes built-in modules that enhance your website with features such as quick product views, advanced search, and social media integration. Additionally, the theme integrates with marketing tools to promote your company’s deals more effectively. It includes newsletter pop-ups, product reviews, and social sharing options.
Glowy Cosmetics and Skin Care Beauty Responsive Opencart Theme
Using the Glowy theme, you can launch an OpenCart eCommerce website selling beauty, skincare, cosmetics, and similar products. It features an elegant design, which automatically adjusts to all screen sizes. Thanks to the intuitive navigation patterns, users can seamlessly browse the collection of products and find the needed items. Additionally, the theme includes handy product filters that allow users filter items by brand, category, price, and other criteria. Multi-currency and multi-language support is included, allowing you to enhance your customers’ shopping experience.
Canva Modern Furniture OpenCart Template
When looking for OpenCart themes that could be a perfect fit for a furniture and decor store, consider the Canva design. This pixel-perfect eCommerce solution helps you launch a competitive furniture web store. The theme supports the latest OpenCart version, 3.0.x, and includes a selection of features essential for launching any eCommerce site. All theme elements are fully editable, allowing you to customize ready-made pages, layouts, and forms to your specifications. The theme also includes a slideshow, newsletter subscription, product detail page, Grid/List view, wide and boxed layout versions, and many other elements essential to delivering a personalized user experience.
Favorite Burger Responsive OpenCart Theme for eCommerce
As the name suggests, the Favorite Burger OpenCart theme is best suited for launching food-related eCommerce projects. It’s a splendid solution for fast-food restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses that offer food delivery. The theme is fully responsive and includes a Mobile View, making it easy for users to browse your website on the go. The theme is based on Bootstrap and works with OpenCart 3.0.3.0. Additionally, it includes working contact forms with Ajax.
SuperMart Mega Shop Multipurpose Responsive OpenCart Theme
If you are working on a product-rich web store, the SuperMart OpenCart theme will be handy. It’s a multi-purpose eCommerce solution, which also works well for building dropshipping websites. The theme also fits a variety of niche-specific projects, like fashion, electronics, furniture, food, etc. The theme is responsive and Retina-ready and fully responsive. The theme’s layout is fully customizable using built-in tools for adjusting fonts, colors, banners, and widgets. using a powerful MegaMenu, advanced search and Ajax-based features, the them,e lets you boost customers’ shopping experience manyfolds.
WooCommerce vs OpenCart SEO & Marketing
When comparing WooCommerce vs OpenCart in terms of SEO and marketing features, WooCommerce looks more usable. The eCommerce platform supports such popular and useful SEO tools as Yoast and RankMath. It allows you to set up automatic sitemaps and redirects whenever respective changes are applied to the URLs.
OpenCart provides a more basic set of SEO and marketing tools. For example, you can use meta data and edit URLs. If you are looking for more advanced features, you need to integrate your web store with the needed modules and work with the code.
WooCommerce vs OpenCart Performance, Security & Support
Whether you decide to use WooCommerce or OpenCart to create an online store, beware that both platforms require additional security measures to ensure that your web store is secure and error-free. This includes setting up regular backups, SSL, firewall, etc.
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To a great degree, WooCommerce security and performance depend on the chosen web hosting provider. When selecting one, ensure it offers regular updates, security plugins, and lifetime support available 24/7.
In terms of performance, OpenCart is lightweight and delivers a stable, fast experience for small- and medium-sized stores. Still, the performance can degrade under high traffic and or with large inventories. You will need to install third-party modules to ensure your store performs well, and set up regular backups to prevent data and settings from being lost.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, there is no definite winner in the WooCommerce vs OpenCart comparison. The choice of the best platform depends entirely on your brand’s specific needs and the resources your company possesses. While not all of us are as technically skilled as it’s needed to install and manage OpenCart, many brands opt for WooCommerce to set up their web stores. In such cases, the best WooCommerce themes are beneficial for a quick and seamless eCommerce project start.