I have to add my 2c as well.
Here are my major points why I still use Zen Cart for most of my stores:
- Lots of features
- Plugins for many downfalls are available free of charge with support on this forum
- easy to make changes to code
- Performance
- SEO friendly (with CEON URL installed near to perfect)
Major points/features why I keep looking elsewhere:
- No guest checkout, mod that is available still does not allow guest checkout if previously registered the same email.
- No short checkout out of the box. Offered solutions were hard to implement, merge with other mods and there were security concerns too with it.
- price auto update on option selection
- replace main image with option image (swap in image of selected option), then carry forward to shopping cart. Say you selected a yellow t-shirt, you will see it in the cart (and not the blue main image).
Stuff that is a bit of a drag but not a deal breaker:
- slow development to a more modern system overall
- responsive base template with header menu shopping cart that shows # of items in it. Ann has created some cool templates but they are not easy to change. The base responsive is too basic.
- Better image management out of the box. Pretty much every system I look at has a drag and drop feature plus an media manager built in.
One of the newer solutions that I have been playing with is Abantecart. Absolutely great modern feel and easy to get going with. It has just a few features missing that bum me out. A good sale maker is one of the features missing. It is a pretty new solution and I'm just not sure how it will fair on security issues and long term development. There are a lot of SaaS solutions available that are strong contenders too. 3dcart has a lot of good stuff going IMHO. Tried to get a sense of Magento 2 but it seems still very daunting task to get the hang of it plus lots of extension are pretty pricey.
I so wish Zen Cart could catch up at a faster pace.
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