WooCommerce vs Opencart: A Detailed Comparison

Have you ever been asked to choose between two CMS—WooCommerce and OpenCart? You must have been baffled before giving a confident reply, which is perfectly fine.

You have to be ambidextrous when running an eCommerce store because you are not just responsible for generating sales and traffic—you have a multifaceted role.  One of the roles is to choose the best eCommerce platform from the available plethora of options.

The best eCommerce platform options include:

1. WooCommerce
2. OpenCart
3. Shopify
4. PrestaShop
5. BigCommerce
6. Wix

In this detailed guide, we will help you to choose between the two most popular platforms of 2025, which are WooCommerce and OpenCart. 

So, let’s explore every detail.

OpenCart Vs WooCommerce Overview

What Is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a self-hosted eCommerce platform that runs on WordPress. This platform has more than 4.6 million active WooCommerce stores, which is a huge marketplace share. WooCommerce itself, being a plugin for WordPress, turns an ordinary site into an eCommerce solution with fast order processing, online payment options, and whatnot.  These are the reasons the majority of the websites migrate from OpenCart to WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is known for its

• Widespread popularity and active users
• Features and tools offered
• Multivendor marketplace
• The ease of use and installation 
• Extensive plugin range 

What Is OpenCart?

Like WooCommerce, OpenCart is also an emerging eCommerce platform with an extensive range of plugins and extensions to extend your website functionality. This platform has 193,073 live OpenCart stores as of 2025, which is comparatively fewer than WooCommerce but a lot compared to other platforms.

OpenCart is popular for:

• OpenCart is a stand-alone platform
• Fits well for novice users
• Built-in modules and themes
• Multi-store management functionality

Detailed Comparison of WooCommerce and OpenCart

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Ease of Use

Ease of use for both these platforms is defined from the perspective of how easy it is to install. WooCommerce—a handy and easy-to-use platform that involves no complex steps for its installation. The only thing required for WooCommerce installation is familiarity with WordPress, and you are good to go.

The steps for installing WooCommerce involve:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard
• Visit Plugins and click on Add New
• Search for WooCommerce
• Click on Install and then Activate
• Now run the WooCommerce setup wizard

In comparison, the complexity of the OpenCart installation curve is a bit too steep. This complexity in its installation is because of the database creation and file transfer requirements. To install OpenCart, carry out these few steps:

• From the official website, download the OpenCart files
• Upload the files on the web server
• Create the database
• Now run the OpenCart installer

So, the clear winner here is WooCommerce because of the simple steps involved. If you are an astute user, you may find OpenCart simple, too, but not for a novice user.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Customization and Flexibility

One of the features of enhanced user experience is how customizable and flexible your online store is. Although the customization needs vary depending on the type of business you operate, the basic customization needs are there for every business.  WooCommerce makes acquiring customization much easier.

It is because:

• WooCommerce does not require making any changes to the code for customization
• WooCommerce plugins are galore to help you customize your store
• WordPress Customizer also lets you customize your WooCommerce store
• Embedding new features and functionalities happens with just a few clicks

OpenCart, on the other hand, offers fair customization options but with some strict requirements. Requirements like having strong technical knowledge to customize the code and files associated. You can, however, consult an eCommerce development service to help you design and develop online solutions tailored to your custom needs.

For customizing with OpenCart:

• You need a string command over coding techniques
• You must be aware of making improvements and amendments to the code
• Locating the right file to embed the code is mandatory 

When ease and comfort are paramount when customizing your online store, then no other platform can beat WooCommerce. So, WooCommerce is clearly for the win here.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Plugins and Extensions

Plugins and extensions are a source to enhance your website functionality, features, security, and other aspects. With WooCommerce, you get plugins from multiple sources, like the WordPress repository, the WooCommerce marketplace, and also from third-party sources. 

• WooCommerce has more than 800 extensions
• WooCommerce has 59,000+ plugins available

Some plugins offered by WooCommerce are free

On the contrary, OpenCart also offers a wide range and variety of plugins and extensions for its users. From the OpenCart marketplace, you can find your desired plugin, theme, and module effortlessly. 

• OpenCart has approximately 13000 extensions
• OpenCart also comes with a variety of free and paid plugins

So the verdict here is that both WooCommerce and OpenCart offer a wide range of plugins and extensions, which is why it is a win for both these platforms.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Themes and Design

When it comes to making or breaking the web user experience, the website design and theme are the key contributors. Every website comes with unique and varying design needs, which is why the trends followed are also different. WooCommerce has a wide range of themes to choose from, which cater to your design needs well.

• WooCommerce offers both free and low-cost themes
• WordPress themes are also compatible with WooCommerce
• WooCommerce themes are highly customizable

In comparison, OpenCart has its fair share of themes but is not as impressive as WooCommerce. The OpenCart themes are not just fewer in number, but they also come with some technical requirements for their handling. 

• OpenCart themes are nearly 500 in number
• To customize the OpenCart themes, you need technical abilities and skills

Keeping both the offers of these two eCommerce platforms, it is not so hard to declare WooCommerce as the undisputed winner here. The ease of use and customization make WooCommerce themes the best.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Payment Gateways

Payment gateways are among the list of factors that decide the abandonment rates. Having fewer or limited payment options is also a turn-off for your store visitors, which is why having enough and multiple gateways is crucial. 

With WooCommerce: 

• You can integrate more than 100 payment gateways
• It allows you to integrate these popular payment methods: PayPal, SagePay, Stripe, Braintree, WooCommerce Payments, PayFast, and Amazon
• All the payment gateways are secure

OpenCart Offers:

• A total of 36 payment methods
• The payment gateways you can integrate are Authorize.Net, Amazon Payments, First Data, Klarna, LiqPay, Skrill, PayPal, SagePay, with several others
• Payment methods for regional and specific markets

In comparison to both of these two platforms, the decision is completely yours, irrespective of the type of payment method offered. It is because the payment method to integrate is dependent on multiple factors, one of them being the regional boundaries and specific business needs.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Product Management

eCommerce stores revolve around products and their management. Whether it is the management of out-of-stock products, products in stock, or coming soon products, their management will make it easier for the user to explore them. 

When product management in WooCommerce is discussed:

• WooCommerce paves the path for improved product management 
• You can manage the products in bulk
• Add, remove, or edit any product alone or in bulk from the backend
• The layout and settings for WooCommerce product management are simple

Whereas, OpenCart:

• Lacks bulk product edit options
• Editing the products is quite confusing for the users due to multiple tabs
• Product management is time-consuming

Without any second thoughts, we can give the winner award to WooCommerce here because of the ease it provides with quick edit options. OpenCart fails due to the unavailability of bulk edit options, complicating things for the users.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Pricing and Cost

The pricing and cost of the eCommerce platform is one of the primary concerns for many store owners, which is the best thing. One should assess the pricing as well, besides comparing the offered features and benefits. One thing that is common between WooCommerce and OpenCart regarding pricing is that both platforms are free. 

Despite being free, with WooCommerce, you still have to pay for:

• A hosting service because WooCommerce does not come with a host
• Pay for premium plugins and themes for improved website features and functionality 
• Pay for domain and SSL certificate

Similarly, for OpenCart:

• Pay for a hosting provider like WooCommerce
• Pay for premium plugins and extensions
• Domain name

By looking at the pricing factor for both WooCommerce and OpenCart, it is a tough decision to choose between either of them. However, you can consider all the other previous factors to choose the platform that fits your needs.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Security Needs

The security of the website is crucial to growing the customer base, web traffic, sales, and conversions. This is why most of the online stores today thrive on security and ensure their medium is secure enough for the web users to not have any complaints. 

When the security of the WooCommerce platform is concerned:

• WooCommerce runs on WordPress, which is why you can use the WordPress security features
• It also offers encrypted interactions and operates on SSL 
• The payment gateways are secure 
• Compatible with many third-party security plugins

OpenCart security comes from:

• A self-fraud detection tool 
• SSL data encryption 
• Free security plugins and extensions

These two platforms offer maximum security to your eCommerce store; however, WooCommerce has a slight competitive edge because of the security features that come with WordPress.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: SEO Benefits

Your online store’s optimization matters the most. Optimization paves the path for better website traffic and eventually improves sales. Having better website optimization and rankings is a way to crush the competition that you have for your online store. 

When we speak of the WooCommerce optimization opportunities, we get:

• Maximum optimization because of optimized coding of the WordPress PHP files
• A vast ecosystem of optimization plugins like Yoast SEO and RankMath
• Third-party plugins for adding meta details

Similarly, the optimization opportunities offered by OpenCart include:

• Enables you to edit meta details of your eCommerce store
• Integration of plugins for optimization
• Search engine-optimized URLs

By looking at the optimization opportunities offered, we can say that WooCommerce gets a competitive edge over OpenCart.

WooCommerce vs OpenCart: Customer Support

Whatever platform you choose for your online store, community support should be the next thing to consider after the pricing and functionality aspects. This community support is all that you need throughout your online journey to survive. 

WooCommerce is popularly known and followed for its

• Strong and active community support
• Community support through multiple social media forums
• You can seek support from the WordPress community as well
• Support through documentation

Whereas the OpenCart community is:

• Smaller compared to WooCommerce’s community support
• Dedicated support with an added fee

If you need maximum support and guidance to maintain your eCommerce store, you can blindly trust WooCommerce compared to OpenCart.

Final Verdict

The choice of the eCommerce platform depends on individual business needs and requirements. Every business is different and operates differently, and thus, the needs also vary. But from my point of view, I consider WooCommerce as a strong support for any online store looking forward to kickstarting with a bang. Strong community support, WooCommerce plugins, security, SEO benefits, product management, and whatnot are offered with the WooCommerce platform. You name it, and WooCommerce will create the opportunities for your online store to thrive, so why not choose this platform?