nopCommerce
Original author(s)Andrei Mazulnitsyn
Developer(s)The nopCommerce development team
Stable release
4.60.5[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 2023-10-12; 2 months ago
RepositorynopCommerce Repository
Written inC#
Operating systemLinux, macOS, Windows
TypeOnline store
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitehttps://www.nopcommerce.com/

nopCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform based on Microsoft's ASP.NET Core framework and MS SQL Server 2012 (or higher) backend Database. It provides a catalog frontend and an administration tool backend, allowing shopping cart creation. It is available under the nopCommerce Public License V3 and officially launched in October 2008 for small to medium-sized businesses.

History

nopСommerce development started in 2008 by Andrei Mazulnitsyn in Yaroslavl, Russia.[2] Later on, the company moved to Armenia, Yerevan.[3] Microsoft recognized nopCommerce as significant and included it with Microsoft's Web platform Installer.[4]

The first versions introduced basic functionality such as order processing, attributes, plugins, discounts, tier pricing, news, blogs, private messages, forums, tax and shipping support. In June 2010, a new data access layer was introduced in version 1.70. Version 2.00 (August 2011) launched nopCommerce as an ASP.NET MVC based solution. Later in 2011 nopCommerce moved to ASP.NET MVC 4. Versions 3.00 and 3.10 were extended to include multi-store and multi-vendor features and to simplify the product logic. In versions 3.50, 3.60, and 3.70, a modern and responsive template was included. Version 3.80 was released with a brand new and responsive admin area with basic and advanced views and with the capability to run in web farms. Version 3.90 contains significant improvements in marketing and content management functionality, performance optimization, and the admin area UI and UX. In version 4.00 nopCommerce was moved to ASP.NET Core 2.0. Starting from version 4.20, the platform provides support of UNIX-based systems, and since version 4.30 it supports MySQL. Version 4.40 has implemented asynchronous programming which supposedly improves performance significantly, support for PostgreSQL database, and Full web farm support which it previously lacked. From version 4.40, nopCommerce started supporting minor versions. In the latest version 4.60.0, nopCommerce was migrated to .NET 7.[5]

The version release cycle varies and time gap between each major release has been increasing significantly. As of December 2023, the planned release date for 4.70 is January 29, 2024. That makes it 13 months from when 4.60 was released. 4.60 was released on December 20, 2022.

Usage

As of February 2022, Builtwith.com reports that 54,139 websites have used nopCommerce.[6] The installation package was downloaded more than 3 million times.[7] It is used by such brands as Volvo, Puma, Reebok, DHC skincare, Columbia, Medindia, and Speedo.[8]

Business model

nopCommerce can be downloaded, installed and used free of charge. The community forum provides free support.[9] There is an optional fee for white-labeling, premium support services,[10] and partnership program.[11] Until 2014, the documentation was downloaded on a paid basis and now is available free of charge.[12]

There are paid plugins (extensions), themes, and customization services provided by the nopCommerce team and many third-party organizations. Most of the paid plugins and themes are sold in a yearly license model or a version-specific license model. In a yearly license model, the plugin or theme will get bug fixes and version upgrades for one year from the date of purchase. This means if there is a new major release for nopCommerce within the 1-year license validity period, then the plugin or theme will get an update if the organization that sold the plugin decides to upgrade the code base of the plugin or theme to support the latest release of nopCommerce. After a year, the plugin or theme can be used with the last compatible version of nopCommerce forever. But to receive any new updates, the license has to be purchased again or renewed, usually with the same original cost or a discounted renewal cost; this varies from partner to partner. In a version-specific license model, the plugins or themes will work only with a specific version of nopCommerce. This means the plugin or theme will not be compatible with any other version of nopCommerce. The plugins or themes will not receive any updates with any new release of nopCommerce. A new version-specific license has to be purchased for any future versions of nopCommerce.

While these are good monetary business models for third-party partners, there has been growing criticism around both models as the paid third-party plugins and themes do not get any updates during a one-year license validity period as the time between each major release of nopCommerce has been increasing steadily. As of December 2023, the average time between each major nopCommerce release is about 13 months. On top of this, additional development time for updating the plugin and themes by the respective organizations (partners) has to be factored in as well.

Community

nopCommerce has an active community of users and developers, which provides assistance to other users; contributes with code, plugins and other extensions; and helps with planning the roadmap.[13] As of February 2022, it has 140 partners in 140 countries providing custom development, graphic theme creation, and other services.[14] As of January 2019, the stackoverflow.com has more than 1,000 questions tagged "nopCommerce".[15] Current marketplace offers more than thousand plug-ins and themes. nopCommerce has been translated to 56 languages.

On 30 October 2015, the first conference of the nopCommerce community #NopDevDays took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands, attracting more than 65 delegates from 14 countries.[16] nopCommerce Days was the second conference in Amsterdam in October 2016, which hosted 160 attendees from 30 countries and was a 2-day event with 19 presentations and 4 workshops.[17] The third nopCommerce Days conference was held in November 2017 in New York,[18] and the fourth in November 2018 in Las Vegas.[19] In 2016 nopCommerce community started organizing webinars and meetups around the world.[20]

Awards and recognition

In 2010 and 2011 nopCommerce reached the final in the Packt Open Source E-Commerce Award.[21] nopCommerce is in the featured and top 5 most downloaded applications provided by Microsoft Web Platform Installer.[22] In 2013, nopCommerce was chosen as the best finance app by Russian WebReady awards.[23]

In January 2016, nopCommerce won CMScritic's "Best eCommerce for SMB" award.[24]

In April 2020, nopCommerce was included in Emerce 100 ranking.[25]

Benefits of nopCommerce

  • Ease of installation
  • SSL Certificate Compatibility
  • Reliable and bug-free
  • Third-party payment integration system
  • Easy installation of themes and plugins
  • Appropriate documentation
  • Easy setup in visual studio software
  • Change the favicon icon in nopCommerce

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Release 4.60.5". 12 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  2. ↑ Cart of the Week: nopCommerce, 14 February 2009, archived from the original on 2 March 2016, retrieved 30 December 2015
  3. ↑ "About us - nopCommerce". www.nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  4. ↑ "Windows Web App Gallery - Gallery". www.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 10 December 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  5. ↑ "nopCommerce 4.60.0 release notes". www.nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  6. ↑ "nopCommerce Usage Statistics". trends.builtwith.com. Archived from the original on 6 February 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  7. ↑ "nopCommerce. Free and open-source eCommerce platform". nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  8. ↑ "Why choose nopCommerce". www.nopcommerce.com. Archived from the original on 19 June 2019. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  9. ↑ "nopCommerce - open source shopping cart. Forums. - nopCommerce". www.nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  10. ↑ "nopCommerce Premium support services". www.nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  11. ↑ "Create your store with nopCommerce partners". www.nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  12. ↑ "nopCommerce Documentation". Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  13. ↑ Glasskeys, Stephen. "Create an online store in minutes with nopCommerce". Archived from the original on 17 January 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
  14. ↑ "nopCommerce - open source shopping cart. Solution partners". www.nopcommerce.com. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
  15. ↑ "Newest 'nopcommerce' Questions". Stack Overflow. Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  16. ↑ "NopDevDay 2015". www.nopdevdays.com. Archived from the original on 13 August 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  17. ↑ "nopCommerce Days 2016". Archived from the original on 24 December 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
  18. ↑ "nopCommerce Days 2017". Archived from the original on 15 January 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  19. ↑ "nopCommerce Days 2018". days18.nopcommerce.com. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  20. ↑ "nopCommerce - open source shopping cart. Events, meetups, webinars". www.nopcommerce.com. Archived from the original on 24 December 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
  21. ↑ "Packt Publishing Opens Voting for 2011 Open Source Awards". Archived from the original on 17 January 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  22. ↑ "Windows Web App Gallery - Gallery". www.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 25 December 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  23. ↑ "Сайт в процессе конфигурации". web-ready.ru. Archived from the original on 11 September 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  24. ↑ People's Choice CMS Award Winners Archived 3 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ↑ "Emerce 100: de beste bedrijven in e-business 2020". 7 April 2020.
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