Should We Use PrestaShop?
I’m getting ready to put together an e-commerce site soon and, with the budget what it is (sigh), I have to use a third party package to build on instead of writing a custom platform. Not a new scenario, at a basic level, but it’s been a while since I’ve had to go with this strategy. Put plainly; I have no idea what my options are when it comes to e-commerce though I know I don’t want to go with OsCommerce or CubeCart or, and only because the client forbids it (seriously), Magento.
Should We Use PrestaShop?
PrestaShop is an open source licensed (3.0) e-commerce platform that I was recently introduced to by my friend Caroline; it’s not without it’s faults but there’s also a lot to like once you get past the boogers. PrestaShop has one of those open source business models that’s good for developers but kind of bad for the civilians. By that I mean if you know what you’re doing you can get a shop up and running with little to no cost outside of development time. If not, well you have to spend money in the PrestaStore to buy modules for payment gateways and additional functionality.
Out of the box PrestaShop includes payment modules for Bank Wire, Cash on Delivery (COD), Google Checkout, Paypal, Paypal API and, seriously, checks (I imagine because nothing screams competent company like check by mail and COD payment options). If you want to use any other payment gateway, like Authorize.net for example, you either have to buy it from the PrestaStore for 255 fucking dollars or write your own. Seriously.
The documentation is lacking to say the least. There are all sorts of references to a mythical “Developers Guide” which is coming soon with no hint as to when it’s going to be made available. Since they have an entire site dedicated to selling modules it’s hard not to think of this as intentional (which makes PrestaShop look like dicks in my opinion).
One thing that’s pretty refreshing though is their honesty about incompatibilities with various versions of php. They even know what’s wrong with each version. Right there on the download page they have a very nice warning:
* Some PHP 5 versions are bugged and prevent PrestaShop from working correctly:
* – PHP 5.2.1 (authentication is impossible)
* – PHP 5.2.6 (authentication is impossible under 64bits servers)
* – PHP 5.2.9 (image management/upload broken)
* – PHP < 5.2 (invalid date timezone)
On the one hand it’s really cool that they know there are issues with their software depending on the configuration. On the other hand though it’s a little unnerving that they know about the issues but haven’t fixed them yet. That says to me, and maybe it‘s just me, that development is a little inconsistent and poorly managed; something you DON’T want when choosing any third party solution.
The PrestaShop installation process is actually pretty nice, though the design is guaranteed to make your eyes bleed and it’s not without it’s bugs. The installer goes through the normal and standard system checks we’ve all became used to with third party packages which is nice. The only real issue is that the installer needs the last name field to be capitalized. Weird but really a non issue in the big picture.
PrestaShop Installer Bug
As to the larger issues of bugs and management, Nick Bartlett has spent quite a bit of time documenting those. I haven’t had a chance to look into the extent of them yet, not having used PrestaShop in a production environment yet, but according to Nick’s blog, which I highly recommend checking out if you’re interested in PrestaShop, there are bugs and issues with timezones, removing orders, overzealous security hacks and the product attributes leaves much to be desired.
It should also be noted that I was never able to get the search engine friendly URLs to work. This was on Apache 2.2 CentOS 5 box. I don’t know why though I didn’t look into it too much. Could be my fault but I doubt it.
PrestaShop Administration Panel
The default theme is really gross for both the admin and client sites but it’s possible to create custom themes for the client site. You’ll have to suck it up for the admin site though.
PrestaShop Demo
Digging through the code leads to all sorts of insights. For example, the code style is a bit of a hybrid between procedural and OOP but in a very familiar way. It reminds me of a lot of projects; very logical. Interestingly, PrestaShop uses Smarty as it’s templating mechanism. For me, this is really nice; especially since I’m already familiar with Smarty.
Also, as previously mentioned, there’s a module framework though, also as previously mentioned, the documentation doesn’t exist. So, in theory, it’s possible to extend on PrestaShop though I haven’t had a chance to dig into how that’s done exactly. Expect that to happen in the future though.
All and all, even with the bugs and “issues”, and keeping in mind that I haven’t actually used PrestaShop, I’m not against it. Yes, it sucks that the module everyone and their mother is going to need (Authorize.net) is a paid module but it’s still better than OsCommerce.
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Have a look at OpenCart ( http://www.opencart.com/ ) instead – It comes with Authorize.net “Advanced Integration Method” support right out of the box, and the back-end is very simple & streamlined compared to the highly complex hierarchy of PrestaShop.
What’s more, I find OpenCart much easier to customize & program for than Prestashop – It’s all straight-up PHP, with no custom Smarty classes to learn or mess with.
Can not agree with the idea of OpenCart as a good alternative, this sounds more viable to me
I don’t know if free, but I always recommend Interspire cart. It’s not too expensive, but it is open-source; I’ve done mods for clients using it and it’s relatively painless to work with (especially compared to something like OSCommerce)
Cheers
I wouldn’t use OpenCart, it is full of security flaws in which i tried to fix but the developer said that CSRF is the user’s fault and the fix I had implemented was made impossible to intregrate in newer versions.
http://blog.visionsource.org/2010/01/28/opencart-csrf-vulnerability/
I just started on a PrestaShop site, after fighting to get my boss off osCommerce.
So far the theming makes sort of sense, and the custom payment module I’m writing hasn’t been too much of a headache.
I’ve only experience with osCommerce, Magento and PrestaShop, and so far would recommend PrestaShop.
I installed and used PrestaShop a while ago (so not the current versions) and found it way better than platforms like OSCommerce. I didnt end up using it at the time because I couldnt find enough “english” support on it and the products required alot of additional options that alter the final price.
I eventually decided Magento Commerce was the best for my needs. This turned into a monster to customise and make changes to. But it was working well until my clients asked to move it to another server and upgrade it to a newer version.. thats when I discovered how much I didn’t like Magento and its size.
So recently I have been playing with OpenCart as an alternative. So far it seems really nice. Yes, I have read the CSRF issues, but they are fixed… I am still testing multiple stores heavily before I make my final decision to change over. Apart from negative conversations between the developer and users, OpenCart has really been done well, and im very impressed with it above all the other platforms.
I’m with ya Eza, OpenCart is probably the better solution for most needs.
Eric
The frontend of Prestashop is the best I’ve seen but the backend OpenCart is the best I’ve seen. I wish someone could make a hybrid of the two. I think it would really stand out in the marketplace.