Even though nopCommerce is not as popular as Shopify among e-commerce businesses, it is still regarded as one of the best open-source options out there. The best part of this e-commerce platform is its free plan, which lets you use it at no cost as long as you have some coding knowledge, which gives it the upper hand over Shopify. But is it the one you have been looking for? Let’s find out with a nopCommerce review.

The level of customization nopCommerce offers is highly appreciated, and its online reviews are evidence of this. Additionally, it is easier to use, but the only condition is that you need to have good development knowledge. 

So, if you’re thinking of using nopCommerce but unsure about its functionalities, efficiencies, and pricing, this detailed nopCommerce review will help you get a clear overview of the platform. After reading this review, you will surely be able to make a decision about whether nopCommerce is worth it to you. So, let’s get started!

What is nopCommerce?

nopCommerce is a popular open-source eCommerce platform centered around small to mid-size businesses. It is built on the backend database of MS SQL Server 2012 (or higher) and Microsoft’s ASP.NET Core framework. It allows e-commerce website owners to create a shopping cart with an administration tool backend and catalog frontend.  

The platform was launched in 2008 and was later included in Microsoft’s Web platform installer. The first versions were launched with basic functionalities like order processing, plugins, attributes, tier pricing, discounts, forums, private messages, tax, and shipping support.  

However, the platform’s efficiency increases with each version of the release cycle. The latest update, 4.80, was rolled out on December 11, 2024, which is approximately 8 months since the last release, 4.70.                           

nopCommerce Statistics: Facts and Figures

• nopCommerce contributes about 0.14% of the total e-commerce platform market. (Source: 6Sense)
• nopCommerce powers over 9,185 live websites, and 38,985 sites have used it in the past. (Source: Built With)
• It is the 9th most popular e-commerce platform in Israel and 12th in Greece and Turkey. (Source: Built With)

Is nopCommerce Safe? 

Yes, nopCommerce is a safe platform for creating and running online stores. There’s not one reason but many.  Firstly, nopCommerce has a strong security system in place. It uses HTTPS, which means that the information shared between the store and its customers is encrypted and protected. 

Secondly, the platform regularly updates its software to fix any security issues. These updates are crucial because they protect against new types of cyber threats. Thirdly, nopCommerce has a built-in security feature that helps to prevent common online attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. 

Moreover, the community around nopCommerce is very active and supportive. If any security issues arise, they are quickly identified and addressed by the community and the developers. This means that any potential threats are handled swiftly, adding another layer of security to your store.

Key Features of nopCommerce

nopCommerce is packed with many built-in features that make it a powerful e-commerce platform. Let’s look at some of the key features that it offers:

Multi-Store Management

With nopCommerce, you can run multiple online stores from a single admin panel. This means you can manage all your stores easily, and because they all share a single database, sharing data between them is simple.

Multi-Vendor Support

You can create a marketplace and allow other merchants to sell their products on your website. This feature can expand your product range and attract more customers.

Dropshipping

This feature allows you to assign each product in your store to a specific vendor. When a customer orders a product, the vendor receives an email and ships the order on your behalf. This way, you don’t need to worry about logistics, inventory, or storage space.

Access Control List (ACL)

With ACL, you can control who has permission to access different parts of your website, such as products, categories, or vendor details. This is important for managing security and accessibility.

Responsive Web Design

The administration panel and storefront of nopCommerce are designed to be responsive. This means your website will look great and function well on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

Multilingual and RTL Support

nopCommerce supports over 300 languages. It also supports right-to-left languages like Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, making it accessible to a wider audience.

SEO Features

nopCommerce includes various SEO tools such as XML and HTML sitemap support, META tags for Twitter and Facebook, breadcrumbs, URL canonicalization, and SEO-friendly URLs. These features help improve your website’s visibility on search engines.

Content Management System (CMS)

You can create blogs, forums, and custom pages with nopCommerce. If you need more powerful content management features, you can buy a rich blog plugin that adds categories, featured images, social sharing buttons, and more to your blog posts.

Product Attributes

You can define various attributes for your products, such as SKU (stock keeping unit), size, weight, color, and price. This helps organize and manage your inventory.

Rental and Recurring Products

You can enable customers to rent products or subscribe to them on a recurring basis. This can add flexibility to your business model.

Downloadable Products

You can sell digital products like e-books, online courses, music, or software. Customers can download these offerings directly from your website.

Reward Points Program

This feature allows customers to earn points for their purchases. For instance, spending $100 might earn them 1 point worth $1, which they can use on future orders. This helps in building customer loyalty.

Discounts, Coupons, and Gift Cards

You can offer various promotions through discounts, coupons, and gift cards to attract and retain customers.

Multi-Currency and Tax Support

nopCommerce supports multiple currencies and has tax configuration options, including EU VAT support. This makes it easier to sell globally.

Multiple Payment Methods

The platform integrates with over 50 payment methods and gateways, offering flexibility to your customers in how they pay for their purchases.

Anonymous/Guest Checkout

Customers can complete their orders without creating an account. If you prefer a one-page checkout process, you can purchase a plugin for that.

Multiple Shipping Methods

You can define custom shipping methods or work with major carriers like FedEx or UPS. In-store pickup options are also available.

GDPR Compliance

nopCommerce ensures compliance with GDPR, helping you manage customer data responsibly. These compliances are mandatory for e-commerce businesses. 

These are just some of the significant built-in features of nopCommerce. You can purchase plugins from the nopCommerce marketplace if you need more advanced features. And since it’s open source, you can add custom features if needed. If you’re not a .NET developer, you can hire nopCommerce developer to help you out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Is nopCommerce Free?

nopCommerce is a free and open-source platform, which means you can use it without paying anything upfront. However, there are some situations where additional costs might come up. Let’s look at a few of these scenarios:

Adding New Features

If you need a feature that isn’t included in the basic nopCommerce package, you might have to purchase an extension from the nopCommerce marketplace. Alternatively, you can work with a certified nopCommerce expert to develop this feature for you. If you have the necessary skills, you can also build and implement the feature yourself.          

Removing the ‘Powered by nopCommerce’ Link

By default, nopCommerce includes a ‘Powered by nopCommerce’ link on your website. If you want to remove this link, you will need to pay $250 for a copyright removal key. You might also be able to buy this key at a discounted price from a solution partner like Nop-Templates.

Premium Support

For those who need extra support from the nopCommerce core team, there are premium support plans available. These plans cost $499 for three months or $999 for a year. Premium support includes services like technical support, answering general usage questions, bug fixing, and custom code reviews. The team promises to respond to any requests within one business day.

You can pay for the premium support subscription all at once or monthly. However, there is no discount for paying the full amount upfront. It’s also worth noting that premium support does not cover themes or plugins developed by third parties. For issues with these, you will need to contact the developer directly.                                

nopCommerce Themes Review

The nopCommerce marketplace has a collection of 170 themes. These include both free and commercial themes, catering to various needs and budgets. 

Here’s a closer look at what you can find:

• Total Themes: 170
• Free Themes: 51
• Commercial Themes: 119, priced between $13.68 and $249

Out of all the themes available, 51 are compatible with the latest version of nopCommerce (4.10). Among these, 11 themes are free, and 40 are commercial, ranging in price from $9.99 to $249.

Generally, more expensive themes offer more advanced options. For example, Nop-Templates has developed 29 themes, each bundled with over 10 plugins. When you purchase one of these themes, you get additional functionalities without any extra cost.       

nopCommerce Plugins Review

The nopCommerce marketplace offers a wide variety of plugins—over 1800 of them! These plugins are divided into 8 main categories to help you find exactly what you need. Here are the categories:

• Language Packs: These plugins help you translate your store into different languages.
• Payment Modules: These are used to add different payment options to your store, such as credit cards or digital wallets.
• User Interface & Widgets: These plugins enhance the appearance and functionality of your store’s interface.
• Shipping & Delivery: These help manage shipping options and delivery logistics.
• Marketing & Sales: These plugins offer tools for promoting your store and boosting sales.
• Administration: These help you manage various administrative tasks within your store.
• Customers: These plugins focus on customer management and engagement.
• Security: These help protect your store from security threats.

To make things even easier, there are 24 subcategories. This means you can quickly find the right plugin for your specific needs. For example, if you notice a high cart abandonment rate on your site, you can filter plugins by the ‘Remarketing & abandoned carts’ subcategory. This allows you to choose the best plugin to address this issue.

Additionally, you can filter plugins based on their compatibility with different versions of nopCommerce, their ratings, and prices. This helps you find the most suitable plugin for your store.    

Review of nopCommerce Partners & Community

As nopCommerce is an open-source platform, it doesn’t offer desiccated customer support. However, there’s enough community support to solve all your issues through the nopCommerce forum. Here, dozens of new posts appear daily, with hundreds of ongoing discussions. 

This forum is a hub where .NET developers, digital agencies, marketers, and store owners come together. They ask for advice, share ideas, discuss updates, and collaborate on future projects.

It’s a place to find solutions to problems, learn about new features, and keep up with the latest trends in e-commerce development. The interaction on the forum helps everyone stay connected and informed.

Moreover, 217 certified nopCommerce developers actively contribute to the community daily. These developers share their expertise, answer questions, and help solve issues, making the forum an essential part of the nopCommerce ecosystem. 

Pros and Cons of nopCommerce

So, we are done with our analysis, and now it’s time for the verdict. Here, we have listed down some of the ins and outs of using nopCommerce: 

How Does nopCommerce Compare to Shopify?

As a leading e-commerce development company, we have hands-on experience with both Shopify and nopCommerce. So, we decided to compare both platforms to give an idea of which fits best for you. Here’s what we found out about both, based on my first-hand experience.

1. Ease of Use

• Shopify: Super user-friendly. You don’t need to know any coding. Everything was very intuitive and guided, from setting up the store to adding products.
• nopCommerce: A bit more technical. You may need to have some basic understanding of web development. It offers great flexibility, but it might be challenging if you’re not tech-savvy.

2. Customization

• Shopify: It has a lot of themes and apps. However, customization beyond these can be limited unless you pay extra.
• nopCommerce: Highly customizable. Since it’s open-source, you can tweak almost everything to fit your needs. But again, this required some coding knowledge.

3. Cost

• Shopify: Comes with different pricing plans. I had to pay monthly, and if I wanted extra features, it added to the cost.
• nopCommerce: Free to use, but I had to pay for hosting and any additional plugins I needed. Overall, it was more cost-effective for me.

4. Features

• Shopify: Packed with built-in features and an extensive app store. Everything was ready to go.
• nopCommerce: Also feature-rich but with more advanced options. It felt more like I was building something unique.

Conclusion

While nopCommerce is a powerful platform with a lot of potential, it is best for those with some development experience. For newcomers or those who prefer an easier setup, other e-commerce solutions might be a better fit. However, if you need customization and can manage the technical aspects, nopCommerce can be a go-to option for you. 

So, if you want professional assistance in setting up your online e-commerce store, you can hire nopComerce development services from Malicy App Developers. We boast 14+ years of e-commerce development experience and offer exceptional services at affordable pricing.

FAQs

How Popular is nopCommerce? 

nopCommerce is a popular open-source eCommerce solution, used by over 3,360 companies worldwide. It holds a market share of approximately 0.14% in the eCommerce platform market.

What Companies Are Using nopCommerce? 

Companies like Cognizant, HCL Technologies, Microsoft, and Samsonite are using nopCommerce. It’s popular among businesses in the retail and IT sectors.

Is NopCommerce Legit? 

Yes, nopCommerce is a legitimate and reputable eCommerce platform. It has positive reviews and is widely used by businesses for its robust features and flexibility.

What is NopCommerce Used for? 

NopCommerce is used to create and manage online stores, handle product listings, manage customers, process orders, and integrate payments.

Who Uses NopCommerce? 

Small to large businesses, especially in the retail and IT sectors, use nopCommerce. It’s popular among companies with 1-10 employees and those with revenues ranging from $1 million to $10 billion.

Is NopCommerce PCI Compliant? 

Yes, nopCommerce is PCI compliant, ensuring secure transactions and compliance with industry standards for payment processing.

What is the Default Port of NopCommerce? 

The default port for nopCommerce is 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS.

How Much Does NopCommerce Cost? 

nopCommerce is free to use, but additional costs may apply for premium support services and plugins.

How to Write a Plugin for NopCommerce? 

To write a plugin for nopCommerce, you need to follow the developer guide available on their website. It involves creating a new class, implementing required interfaces, and registering the plugin in the system.