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ASP versus PHP: The Battle in shopping cart Supremacy

Now whether you’ve worked with shopping carts before or not there seems to be two standard forms of programming language used. PHP and ASP

PHP is in my opinion the predominant language of e-commerce platforms simply because of the following…

• its easy to develop
• the total cost of ownership is lower then that of ASP/ASP.Net
• It’s versatile and most times its ‘open source’.

ASP on the other hand…

• is usually a proprietary shopping cart platform that can be harder to develop
• has a high total cost of ownership
• Is NOT as versatile as PHP, it usually runs best in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.

Technologies to note:

Shopping Cart: osCommerce

Site: www.osCommerce.com

Language: PHP/mySQL

While the base package of osCommerce is relatively simple to implement I am always surprised at how versatile this shopping cart really is. With the right template on the front-end (something professional, stylish, simplistic) and business specific customizations and modules in the backend it’s a hard shopping cart to beat. It’s built using PHP/mySQL and its open-source. Those are two really big selling points for this technology.

Shopping Cart: VP-ASP

Site: www.vpasp.com

Language: ASP

This is an interesting shopping cart I came across simply because it’s ASP-based and also open-source. They off a free trial version for their potential customers to play with which is helpful in helping you to decide whether or not an ASP cart is for you and your business or not. The shopping, while the base version is free the other versions and most of the subsequent modules will cost you.

Luc’s Picks:

The easiest shopping cart for someone just getting into e-commerce would be an osCommerce shopping cart simply for the reasons stated above but also for the fact that if you aren’t hung up on language that the site is developed in then I highly suggest you look at osCommerce. You’ll get the most “bang” for your proverbial buck.

On the other hand, if you’ve some money to pour into your commerce system you may want to look at VP-ASP (ASP) or X-CART. While they are more expensive they do come with support credits to help you through the installation and are almost equally as customizable as osCommerce.

Last but not least…

Regardless of which shopping cart that you choose to develop with they all have advantages and disadvantages to working with them.

Overtime as you develop off of base shopping cart and the system becomes more and more your own business system it will be harder to simply scrap the shopping cart for another and expect the same functionality.

Most times, in choosing a shopping cart, money is an issue. How much does it cost to set up? How much do I need to think about paying a developer to help me build my store? And further questions along those lines.

Lucas

Hardcore osCommerce biased Guy