9 Best Free eCommerce Website Builders Comparison Chart
Update: 11-14-16 Drag and Drop Table added further down on this page.
| Builder Logo | Builder Name | More Info | Pricing | Support: Phone | Support: Live Chat | Support: Email/Help Desk | Support: Forum | Built-in Credit Card Processors | Payment Processors | No Transaction Fees | Mobile App to Manage Store | Extensions or Add-ons | Themes (All Mobile Ready) | Drag & Drop Builder | Hosting | Unlimited Products | Digital Products | Point of Sale System | Marketing: Email/Newsletter | Marketing: Discount Codes & Coupons | Marketing: External Store Integration | Marketing: Affiliate Program for your Store | Misc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | X-Cart | Visit SiteSpecial Offers | 1-time payment: Free, $495 | $1,495 | $3,995 | Yes but not 24/7 | Yes | Yes | Amazon Pay, Paypal, Authorize.net, +72 more | Yes | Yes | Yes, Paid & Free | No | Yes, for seperate monthly bill | Yes | Yes, w/ Business Plan | Yes | Yes | Yes | Google Shopping, Facebook Store, Ebay & Amazon with free or paid extensions | Yes | Abandoned Cart Reminder w/ Enterprise only | |||
 | WooCommerce | Visit Site | Free | No | No | Yes | Amazon Payments Stripe Authorize.Net PayPal +more | Yes | Yes, iOS only for $4.99 1-time payment | Yes, Paid & Free | No | Yes, for a seperate monthly bill | Yes | Yes, + Subscriptions | No | Yes, many plugins to choose from | Yes | Google Shopping & Facebook Store w/ paid extensions | Yes, w/ another Wordpress plugin | All Wordpress plugins are available to you | |||
 | PrestaShop | Visit Site | Free | No | No | Monthly fee for support | Amazon Payments Authorize.Net PayPal +50 more | Yes | No | Yes, Paid & Free | No | Yes, Cloud | Yes | Yes | Yes, w/ Paid Extensions | Yes | Yes | GoogleShopping & Facebook Store w/ paid extensions Shopgate Mobile commerce | Yes | Abandoned Cart Reminder | |||
 | Weebly | Visit SiteSpecial Offers | Monthly: Free, $8, $12, $25 | 24/7 w/ Pro & Above | Yes | Yes | Stripe Paypal Authorize.net | only w/ Business Package | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, Included | w/ Business | Yes | No | Yes | Yes on Business Package | No | No, but OSI has a solution | Checkout redirects to weebly.com unless you have Business Package Abandoned Cart Recovery on Performance Package | |||
 | Zencart | Visit Site | Free | No | No | No | Paypal Authorize.net +4 more | Yes | No | Yes, Paid & Free | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes, w/ Free or Paid Extensions | Yes w/ Add-on | Yes | No | Yes | Very helpful community on forums | |||
 | OpenCart | Visit Site | Free | No | No | No | Amazon Pay Paypal Authorize.net +33 more | Yes | No | Yes, Paid & Free | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes, w/ Paid Extensions | Yes w/ Extension | Yes w/ Extension | Facebook Store with free or paid extension | Yes | ||||
 | Big Cartel | Visit Site | Monthly: Free, $9.99, $19.99, $29.99 | No | No | Yes, Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm EST. Light coverage weekends and evenings. | Stripe & Paypal. Square Register and cash options via POS app | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, Included | No, each plan has a product limit. (look in Misc for more info) | Yes w/ their integrated sister-service | Yes, iOS app | No | Yes | Facebook Tab | No, but OSI has a solution | Click here for info | |||
 | Ecwid | Visit SiteSpecial Offers | Monthly: Free, $15, $35, $99 | w/ Business package or higher | w/ any paid package | Yes | Stripe, Paypal, Authorize.net +40 more | Yes | w/ any paid package (Android & iOS) | Yes, Paid & Free | No | Yes, Included | No, see Misc | w/ any paid package | w/ Unlimited Package | Yes w/ Add-on | w/ any paid package | w/ Business package or higher | Yes, via 3rd party Post Affiliate Pro | Click here for info | |||
 | Magento: CE | Visit Site | Free | No | No | No | Amazon Payments, PayPal, Authorize.net, and Google Checkout | Yes | Paid (Android & iOS) | Yes, Paid & Free | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes, Paid | Yes | Yes | Facebook Store Free, Google Shopping Paid | Yes, Paid extension |
These are the best free eCommerce web builders on the market right now. Some of these will require your own web hosting which will cost you a couple bucks a month. That considered you could get a paid eCommerce service with hosting included through Shopify for $9 a month.
Absolutely free eCommerce platforms
You should definitely consider using marketplaces like Ebay as a must if building a brand or website is not important at this point.
The charts on this page include two types of solutions: Platforms and self-hosted. This difference is that a self-hosted solution would require you to download the software and uploaded it to your own hosting provider. A platform is all-in-one. They will allow you to signup to their website and they will also host your online store on a subdomain of their own website like: yourstorename.theirwebsite.com
So let’s get into the platforms that you can use that are absolutely free.
PrestaShop has cloud hosting and a self-hosted solution. No transaction fees. There is no product limit from what I can see for a free user of their cloud hosting solution.
Both versions share the majority of their features. The initial difference lies in hosting and customization:
- PrestaShop Cloud:
- PrestaShop hosts your shop for you, for free. You can use a subdomain or get your own domain.
- You can use any of the thousands of options on PrestaShop Addons, including all the themes and modules.
- PrestaShop self-hosted:
- You must get a hosting provider, and most of the time a domain name too.
- You can use any of the thousands of options on PrestaShop Addons, including all the themes and modules, and can also use non-Addons ones, such as your own theme and modules.
The global differences between PrestaShop Cloud and the self-hosted version of PrestaShop are thus:
| PrestaShop Cloud |
PrestaShop self-hosted |
|---|---|
| Instant store set up, free hosting and start selling in no time. | Download PrestaShop, self-host and begin diving into the code. |
| High speed hosting, subdomain and data storage are included. Add a custom domain name or change your subdomain at any time. | Choose your own hosting provider and manage your own data backups. |
| Customize the default template or choose from hundreds of professional themes from PrestaShop Addons. | Edit the code, install themes or upload your own template. |
| Add features when you configure hundreds of built-in modules and extend your site’s functionality with PrestaShop Addons. | Configure built-in modules, install modules from PrestaShop Addons and upload your own modules. |
| Rely on one-on-one assistance with a PrestaShop Support Plan and visit the PrestaShop forums. | Visit the PrestaShop forums for answers to technical questions or enjoy personal support with a PrestaShop Support Plan. |
| You must create a PrestaShop account and respect our terms of service. | Account creation is only required to participate on the forums and to make a purchase. |
Additionally, PrestaShop Cloud has one limitation that the self-hosted version does not have: you can only use the modules and themes from the Addons marketplace. Non-Addons modules and themes are considered unsafe and therefore not allowed on the platform.
Weebly is another platform you could use. They host you on their own subdomain but the drawbacks here would be that they place ads on your store and limit your diskspace to 500MB. Their benefits would be that they provide chat & email support to free users as well and they have a really slick drag & drop store builder if that interests you. There are transaction fees for free users.
BigCartel will host you for free but they only allow you a maximum of 5 products. No transaction fees.
Ecwid is a really cool option because you can import your store into other websites. They will host your store and have a forever free plan but it has a max of 10 products. You can also setup a Facebook store which is a really nice feature considering others charge for this but here you can use it completely for free. No transaction fees.
If you want to compare them side-by-side use the chart below. Use the “Hosting” column to see whether or not they are an all-in-one platform or if you will have to get your own web hosting.
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Want to compare these shopping carts right next to paid eCommerce solutions? Click here.