Cover image for the article Free e-Commerce solution?

Free e-Commerce solution?

A look at nopCommerce, a free open-source .NET e-commerce platform that ships with admin functionality out of the box and is easy to extend by following its existing patterns.

Software EngineeringSteven Kelly2 min read

Have you ever been given a proposal for an e-commerce solution that requires an immense amount of admin functionality as well as just the basic handling of categories, products and customer accounts with little time to do it in? Well, then look no further, nopCommerce offers the Solution to your problems.

nopCommerce offers the source code and database to an already built platform that handles all your basic e-commerce site needs. The functionality that it comes with, out of the box, is mostly enough for the average Joe to install it and customise it to suit their store by just using the admin panel. And for those that are feeling daring, you can even extend further by downloading plugins and themes from the nopCommerce store.

Although, let's say that the extreme amount of functionality that nopCommerce offers is not enough for your needs. Let's say that you require a more complex product, category, payment, anything. nopCommerce has still got your back. nopCommerce gives you the source code for their solution. They are giving you the code for the solution that they built... For free... No catch. Need more be said?

Now, changing certain flows between methods within nopCommerce can be tricky, and I would not recommend it to anyone that is under time pressure, but once you have gotten the hang of this standard .net core application, you will be good to go.

In my few instances that I have had with e-commerce sites and nopCommerce, I found myself adding even more admin functionality to the website by purely following the already laid out patterns that are in there. Simple. You need another page that displays data that can be managed by an admin in the admin screen? Done. It even gets as simple to a point where you are nearly copying and pasting services over with a simple rename and a new table mapping (But obviously none of us devs ever do that ;) ).

The small brief on nopCommerce above is nowhere near enough the amount of praise that this powerful CMS deserves, but at the same time, a three pager on the solution would not be enough. My suggestion would be to go and download the solution for yourself (Did I mention that it is free?) and give it a run.

Regards,

Every Dev Ever.

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