CS-Cart

While most online e-commerce platform are built and available under a commercial license, there are a few products and services that are trully superior to most open source projects.

CS-Cart is one of them, providing a well-oiled e-commerce machine, perfect for building and deploying one or more online stores, even on cloud-based hosting platforms.

You can test a demo and install a CS-Cart trial locally to get around working with the platform, but thanks to its super-fast AJAX powered interface, you'll get to love and get attached to the way CS-Cart handles its business.

If you can't afford to buy CS-Cart just yet, the trial's feature set may be limited, but covers all the basics. This way you can install CS-Cart, generate some profit and buy the full-on license afterward.

What is new in this release:

• Admin panel: Administration: Backup/Restore: Database size is now shown in the side panel.
• Hooks: New hook added to the regenerate_id method.
• Upgrade Center: MySQLi DB driver support implemented.
• Add-ons: Store import removed.
• Add-ons: Buy together: Combination price was not recalculated when changing options of the combinated products. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Data feeds: Google export: A server error occurred when downloading a data feed created from a category. Fixed.
• Add-ons: PayPal: PayPal Express Checkout: Order total was overwritten with the shipping cost after IPN if the order contained a product with an option of the type File. Fixed.
• Anonymous checkout: It was impossible to register or log in on anonymous checkout after page refresh. Fixed.
• API: Products: An SQL error occurred when a product with repeating categories was created. Fixed.
• Banners: Image assignment could fail randonly. Fixed.
• Export/Import: Images: Memory limit could be exceeded, which caused a fatal error. Fixed.
• Export/Import: Images: The "Image URL" field was always filled with the detailed image URL even if a thumbnail existed. Fixed.
• Export/Import: Quantity discounts: The ult_product_prices table was not updated. Fixed.
• Multi-Vendor: Products: A PHP notice appeared when product's in-stock quantity was changed from 0 to 1 and a customer had been subscribed to the product. Fixed.
• Order management: If a user profile was automatically created with an order, they were not linked. Fixed.
• Order management: Order creation: Customer data could be cleared on form update. Fixed.
• Products: Backward compatibility was broken at "get_products" hook; there was no way to modify the $sortings list. Fixed.

What is new in version 4.3.3:

• Admin panel: Administration: Backup/Restore: Database size is now shown in the side panel.
• Hooks: New hook added to the regenerate_id method.
• Upgrade Center: MySQLi DB driver support implemented.
• Add-ons: Store import removed.
• Add-ons: Buy together: Combination price was not recalculated when changing options of the combinated products. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Data feeds: Google export: A server error occurred when downloading a data feed created from a category. Fixed.
• Add-ons: PayPal: PayPal Express Checkout: Order total was overwritten with the shipping cost after IPN if the order contained a product with an option of the type File. Fixed.
• Anonymous checkout: It was impossible to register or log in on anonymous checkout after page refresh. Fixed.
• API: Products: An SQL error occurred when a product with repeating categories was created. Fixed.
• Banners: Image assignment could fail randonly. Fixed.
• Export/Import: Images: Memory limit could be exceeded, which caused a fatal error. Fixed.
• Export/Import: Images: The "Image URL" field was always filled with the detailed image URL even if a thumbnail existed. Fixed.
• Export/Import: Quantity discounts: The ult_product_prices table was not updated. Fixed.
• Multi-Vendor: Products: A PHP notice appeared when product's in-stock quantity was changed from 0 to 1 and a customer had been subscribed to the product. Fixed.
• Order management: If a user profile was automatically created with an order, they were not linked. Fixed.
• Order management: Order creation: Customer data could be cleared on form update. Fixed.
• Products: Backward compatibility was broken at "get_products" hook; there was no way to modify the $sortings list. Fixed.

What is new in version 4.3.1:

• Add-ons: Bestsellers: Ability to list similar products added.
• Add-ons: Bestsellers: Pages with all on-sale, final sale, newest, and bestselling products added.
• Add-ons: Call requests: Image verification added to the call request form.
• Add-ons: Comments & reviews: Ability to enable comments & reviews for products via export/import functionality.
• Add-ons: Newsletters: Promotions: The "Customer is subscribed" condition added.
• Add-ons: Social login: Google+ and Pinterest support added.
• Add-ons: The Blog add-on added.
• Add-ons: The Newsletters add-on was created from the News and Emails add-on.
• API: Ability to manage options combinations added.
• API: Ability to manage options exceptions added.
• API: Ability to manage product options added.
• API: Ability to manage user groups added.
• API: Block manager: Ability to manage blocks added.
• API: Default API version increased to 2.0.
• API: The new "api_check_access" hook added.
• Backend: Ability to edit the 'robots.txt' file added.
• Backup/Restore: Ability to make a full store backup and restore added.
• Cache: 2-week cache storage for all images added.
• Cache: APC and XCache backends support added.
• Checkout: Ability to hide 1, 3, and 4 checkout steps added.
• Design: Ability to use personal logos/favicons for different styles added.
• Design: Layouts: Ability to configure the top panel, the header, and the footer containers on all layout pages added.
• Design: New product details template added.
• Design: Wrapper: New wrapper 'footer general' added.
• Exim: Ability to Export/Import images for option combinations, option exceptions, option variants, and price/weight modifiers added.
• Exim: Features: The "category delimiter" option added.
• Filters: Layouts: A layout page for product search results added.
• Hooks: New hooks added to currencies, languages, user groups, order statuses, promotions, taxes, payments, and shippings in the backend.
• JS: Downloading jquery and jqueryui from Google CDN added.
• JS: Lazy image loading added.
• Menus: New "Class" field added. User-defined CSS class will be added to the menu item, so this will allow to define the menu item with its own CSS style.
• Multi-Vendor: Ability to make a fully featured vendor storefront like on eBay added.
• Multi-Vendor: Vendors were forbidden to enter JavaScript code.
• Products: Bulk promo text editing added.
• Promotions: New condition "Shipping methods" added.
• Sign in: Registration link added to the login popup.
• Upgrade center: New Upgarde center implemented.
• Add-ons: Call requests: Email notifications added.
• Add-ons: Call requests: The "Phone mask" setting added for the phone number.
• Add-ons: E-mail marketing: The E-mail marketing add-on now uses different settings and API keys for different storefronts.
• Add-ons: Store locator: Links were cut out from the Description field when using HTML mode in it.
• Add-ons: Tags: User tags removed.
• Admin: Tabs in the admin panel look like pills now.
• Cache: Caching for category products added.
• Cache: The Main content block & filters are cached now.
• Checkout: Multi-page checkout style removed.
• Core: The "Image verification: Use for" settings were replaced by a multi-checkbox setting.
• Core: Users: Profiles: Ability to use a username instead of an email for authentication removed.
• CSS/JS: The gzip_css_js tweak is no longer available.
• Database: CS-Cart database works correctly in Strict mode now.
• Exim: Product options support multiple languages now.
• File editor: File editor was divided into templates editor and other files editor.
• File uploader: Image format validation now uses the MIME type instead of checking the image extension.
• Filters: Advanced filters removed, date picker support added, search by filter variants added, ability to filter by a checkbox feature added.
• Filters: Basic theme: Blocks modified to support new filters.
• Filters: Links replaced by checkboxes, product count calculation added, filter by number features looks like a slider now, filter positions can be changed via drag-n-drop in the admin panel.
• JS: JavaScript is loaded last and doesn't block page loading now.
• Modules: Apache mod_deflate is used instead of the PHP gz_handler.
• Modules: GeoIp data updated.
• Payments: PayPal express checkout: Malaysian Ringgit and Turkish Lira added to the Currencies list.
• Products: Ability to enable/disable downloadable products feature added.
• Products: Ability to update shared products positions under the All stores mode added.
• Shippings: Shipping settings section removed, the Add/update shipping method page improved.
• Add-ons: Access restrictions: Email checking function didn't work with PECL version higher than 8.33. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Banners: SQL error occured when updating the banner image. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Buy together: Combination products were shown when they shouldn't be (hidden, out of stock, etc.). Fixed.
• Add-ons: Comments and reviews: Pagination on the categories page did not work. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Comments and reviews: Testimonials: Posts in the "Testimonials" block were displayed randomly despite the settings. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Ebay: Export was failed if the company postal code didn't belong to the country defined in the template settings. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Ebay: Social login: If an admin had no permissions, he could still manage the Social login and the ebay synchronization add-on. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Ebay: XML parsing error appeared during features export to ebay. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Form builder: HTTPS redirecting was active in AJAX mode. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Gift certificates: Min and max amount were calculated incorreclty if the primary currency was disabled. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Gift certificates: Physical size of the price value was smaller then the size of the currency symbol on a gift certificate. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Google export: Exporting the "Sale price" field caused perfomance issues. Fixed.
• Add-ons: HiDPI: The background color of the newly generated image was always "white". Fixed.
• Add-ons: HiDPI: The "Image format is not supported by GD library installed on your server." error message was displayed when cloning the storefront. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Newsletters: Incorrect SMTP server settings were used. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Newsletters: The "Confirmed" flag wasn't enabled for the mailing lists with no autoresponder. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Newsletters: The latest subscription's timestamp was applied for all subscribers. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Original values for add-on settings were not cleared when uninstalling an add-on. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Reward points: Missing language variable was used in the Reward points log. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Reward points: Order management: The "Points in use" field disappeared after editing the order in the admin panel. Fixed.
• Add-ons: SEO: A database error occured when changing SEO settings, if a product with SEO name was removed with the SEO add-on disabled. Fixed.
• Add-ons: SEO: A lot of pages were not being indexed. Fixed.
• Add-ons: SEO: A product SEO name was generated incorrectly after removing the main category of the product. Fixed.
• Add-ons: SEO: Some japanese hieroglyphs were cut out when generating SEO name.
• Add-ons: Social login: PHP notice occured when company_id=0. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Social login: Users couldn't link social accounts to their profiles, if the "quick registration" setting was disabled. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Social login: Widget mode: The Social login add-on didn't work properly in the Widget mode. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Store import: PHP fatal error appeared, if an admin converted LESS to CSS in the Visual editor before import. Fixed.
• Add-ons: Wishlist: When adding a product to the wishlist from the Quick View pop-up, a notification was displayed behind the pop-up. Fixed.
• API: Incorrect parameter settings for the number of displayed elements on the page were used by default. Fixed.
• API: Payments: Shipping: The wrong condition didn't allow admin to create a shipping or a payment method via API. Fixed.
• Block manager: Block settings: Zero value was replaced by the previous value in the Third level elements field. Fixed.
• Block manager: Grids could be arranged globally from the Layouts tab of a product details page. Fixed.
• Call requests: Phone number was hidden if the "Phone prefix length" setting was empty. Fixed.
• Categories: Selected sorting was not being saved when updating category page. Fixed.
• Checkout: Credit card validation didn't work properly on Mac OS X Yosemite & default Japanese IME. Fixed.
• Checkout: Settings: Minimum order amount message wasn't shown on checkout. Fixed.
• Core: HTTPS determined incorrectly using header HTTP_X_HTTPS. Fixed.
• Core: Image verification: Captcha was not displayed, if the Background image option was set up. Fixed.
• Currencies: Live exchange rates: Primary currency was displayed twice. Fixed.
• Dashboard: The Abandoned carts block showed the number of products in the cart instead of the number of abandoned carts. Fixed.
• Design: Backend: Extra symbols were displayed near the Close button in the popup window, if the Japanese lanuage was chosen for the admin panel. Fixed.
• Design: Backend: Positioning of the multiple-select box tooltip improved.
• Design: Feature comparison: The image height ignored the "products list thumbnail height" setting. Fixed.
• Design: Menu: Function definition of the horizontal or vertical menu did not work properly. Fixed.
• Design: Products: If the width of the detailed image was less than 280px the image was not centered. Fixed.
• Design: Products: Long promo text displayed incorrectly on the product details page when there were many option combinations images. Fixed.
• Design: Products: Scroller: The scroller block was displayed incorrectly on mobile devices, if the quantity of the items in the block was equal to one. Fixed.
• Design: Quick menu: An admin was redirected to the blank page after adding a new section. Fixed.
• Design: Scroller: The Quick View button wasn't visible when hovering the mouse pointer over it. Fixed.
• Design: Store locator: The search button of the Store locator block was dispalyed in the top right corner of the page. Fixed.
• Design: Styles: A page, that was loaded over HTTPS, got an error because it requested unsecured content.
• Design: Styles: If the top panel in the Posh style had full width, an admin couldn't change the color of the whole panel. Fixed.
• Design: Styles of the vertical menu fixed for Brightness styles.
• Exim: Feature variants couldn't be imported, if the feature name contained the newline character. Fixed.
• Exim: If all the products were exported and then deleted, after the deletion they could be exported again. Fixed.
• Exim: If there was more than one storefront, product descriptions of the root storefront were updated during data import. Fixed.
• Exim: Users: Profile fields were exported and imported incorrectly when they were created for the billing/shipping section. Fixed.
• Exim: Users: There was an ability to change the user type of the root admin via the import functionality. Fixed.
• Installer: mod_security detection worked incorrectly and blocked further installation. Fixed.
• JavaScript: JavaScript Error occured when changing the vendor for a product. Fixed.
• Live editor: Compatibility with demo store panel implemented.
• Live editor: Language variables: The value wasn't saved in the cscart_language_values table. Fixed.
• Multi-Vendor: Add-ons: Vendor data premoderation: During cloning, the products got the Pending statuses regardless the add-on settings. Fixed.
• Multi-Vendor: If a vendor had restricted categories, the bulk product addition didn't work. Fixed.
• Multi-Vendor: Orders: Checkout: When buying products from several vendors, minimum order amount was checked for each vendor sub-order. Fixed.
• Multi-Vendor: Users: Vendors couldn't update or activate their profiles. Fixed.
• Order management: If the product option was blocked by the forbidden combination, that product was deleted from the cart when editing the order. Fixed.
• Orders: The "Incomplete orders" button wasn't displayed under the gear menu, if all the orders with other statuses were deleted. Fixed.
• Orders: User email link on the order details page didn't work, because of the incorrect @ symbol encrypting. Fixed.
• Pages: Comments & reviews: The "Save and close" button redirected incorrectly, if REQUEST contained the "page" parameter. Fixed.
• Payments: 2checkout: The shipping address was requested at the payment even if the cart contained only EDP products. Fixed.
• Payments: Ability to choose currency in PayPal Advanced added.
• Payments: Add-ons: If a payment processor was added by an add-on, it remained active after disabling the add-on. Fixed.
• Payments: Amazon checkout: Session started incorrectly when callback from Amazon was received. Fixed.
• Payments: CRE Secure: Credit card data input fields were too small. Fixed.
• Payments: DataTrans: Configuration instructions were updated.
• Payments: eWay: Client Side Encryption fuctionality added.
• Payments: PayPal: Order got failed if gift certificate amount was greater then order total. Fixed.
• Payments: PayPal Standard: PayPal IPN worked incorrectly, if a customer used promotions. Fixed.
• Payments: PayPal Standard: Users did not receive notifications about orders with the Open status. Fixed.
• Payments: PayPal: "The Low in stock" notification was sent twice during IPN processing. Fixed.
• Performance: Categories: Changing category's company was extremely slow. Fixed.
• Product options: There was no ability to uncheck a product option from the cart page. Fixed.
• Product options: Unselected product options were shown in the admin invoice, if the selectbox type was excepted and could not be selected. Fixed.
• Products: Admin couldn't edit user groups for several products, if localization functionality was disabled. Fixed.
• Products: EDP: Order management: The "No shippings available" error appeared when editing order with no shipping required. Fixed.
• Products: Files: In some cases, EDP/files attached to products were downloaded damaged. Fixed.
• Products: Files: The php warning appeared when a user downloaded the preview file. Fixed.
• Products: If a product had zero price and the "Ask customer to enter the price" option chosen, the ruble sign was displayed incorrectly. Fixed.
• Products: Quantity discount wasn't removed after deletion of the corresponding user group. Fixed.
• Products: Quick View: The popup didn't open in full size, but with a scrollbar. Fixed.
• Profile fields: The last available year in the date picker was the current year. Fixed.
• Promotions: The "Categories > in" promotion condition worked incorrectly at the last checkout step. Fixed.
• Promotions: The "Give user group" bonus wasn't applied when the group was hidden. Fixed.
• Promotions: Using the "once per customer" condition together with condition groups caused PHP notice. This kind of promotion was applied incorrectly in case of the complicated condition logic. Fixed.
• Promotions: Visual editor: Applied promotions notice appeared after entering the visual editor with an empty cart. Fixed.
• Scripts: Blocks JS code caching worked incorrectly. Fixed.
• Searchanise: If the store database was inconsistent, PHP notices appeared while submitting data to Searchanise. Fixed.
• Searchanise: Price was displayed incorrectly when the currency settings used html entites. Fixed.
• Shipments: Print Packing Slip: The line break tag was displayed in the comments field. Fixed.
• Store import: PHP comments with # symbol were not removed from configuration files. Fixed.
• Store import: SQL error appeared if PayPal settings contained apostrophe. Fixed.
• Stores: Ability to delete the only storefront was disabled.
• Stores: Entered company settings were overwritten by another company settings when creating the company. Fixed.
• The "Your changes have not been saved" notification was displayed for all forms with price field (if the currency symbol was displayed in the input field) when reloading page without any changes.
• Users: Existing customer's e-mail could be used to create an admin account. Fixed.
• Widget mode: Widget mode was enabled, if the hostname contained any port (for example, localhost:9090). Fixed.
• WYSIWYG: CKEditor: Some text in the tag removed from the source code. Fixed.
• WYSIWYG: Redactor: Background color of the text wasn't saved. Fixed.

What is new in version 4.2.4:

• Translations of the profile field names were moved to PO-file.
• Addons: Banner details notes were added.
• API: Auth: Notify parameter was added.
• Orders: Order details page: Customer notes textarea was moved to the central box.
• PHPMailer: "Use Encrypted Connection" settings were added for SMTP server settings.
• Administration: The Users item was removed from the Customers menu.
• Storefront: Quantity: Min value in the quantity input field could be less than one. Fixed.
• Banners: Banners were not shown in some cases if the default language was English. Fixed.
• Addons: Comments and reviews: The rating parameter on the categories page was calculated based on all reviews, including not approved ones. Fixed.
• Addons: Comments and reviews: Empty thread was not created for new companies. Fixed.
• Addons: Ebay: Error message appeared when "no image" picture was uploaded via HTTPS. Fixed.
• Addons: Reward points: Reward points were not recalculated in the user menu in the storefront until the page was reloaded. Fixed.
• Addons: Tags: Add tags did not work with UTF8 characters. Fixed.
• Back-end: Search: Search did not work when admin added product and continued the search. Fixed.
• Basic theme: Contact us form was displayed incorrectly in a popup window. Fixed.
• Checkout: Credit card validation did not work. Fixed.

What is new in version 4.1.4:

• Admin panel: Shipments: Ability to print packing slips in the PDF format added.
• Admin panel: Order management: The Shipping address dialog is now automatically opened and properly located on the order editing page.
• API: Open API: Restricted unauthenticated API access is now available. Fixed.
• Core: Hooks: New hook 'calculate_cart_post' added.
• Design: Themes: Ability to specify parent theme (source files theme) added.
• Design: Themes: Backward compatibility: Support of manifest.ini files returned.
• Payment methods: Sagepay: New credit card type support added.

What is new in version 4.1.3:

• Export/Import: Ability to export/import the following product properties: "max quantity", "quantity step", and "list quantity step" added.
• HTML tags can no longer be used in user data.
• Installer: Validator extended with the PharValidator.
• Layouts: Cache: Extra cache level "HTTPS" added.
• Addons: Image zoom: New position of the zoom list added.
• Export/Import: Orders: The Store field added to export.
• Logs: Multi-request logging added.
• Shipping methods: USPS: Ability to use "GroundOnly" flag added.

What is new in version 4.1.2:

• Design:
• 4.0.x theme compatibility added.
• Core:
• Google Chrome browser crashed when moment.js library was used. Fixed.
• Security:
• Checkout: There was an exploitable XSS vulnerability during customer checkout. Fixed.

What is new in version 4.0.3:

• Ability to manage Currencies (Create/Edit/Delete) added for all currencies in the Free mode.
• Ability to manage Languages (Install/Edit/Delete) added for all languages in the Free mode.
• Addons: Bestsellers: New filling "On sale" (all products with active discounts) added for the Products block.
• Addons: SEO: Pre and post hooks added to the functions fn_create_seo_name, fn_seo_get_name, and fn_delete_seo_name.
• Captcha: Captcha TTL (Time To Live) set to 6 hours.
• Core: Hooks: Products: The image_wrap hook was added to the quick view template.
• Core: Hooks: the tools_list hook added.
• Design: Storefront: Unique class names added for product options on the product page.
• Design: Theme Editor: Ability to add background images for all elements in the backgrounds section added.
• Design: The new 'Reddish' storefront theme preset added.

What is new in version 3.0.6:

• Shippings: USPS shipping services updated.
• Addons: SEO: SEO names were re-generated with the default values when saving categories at categories management page.
• Payments: PayPal standard: It was possible to place an order and direct the payment to a third party PayPal account.

What is new in version 3.0.4:

• Obsolete function 'fn_get_setting_edition_condition' removed.
• Order management: Product price cannot be negative anymore.
• Orders: Credit cards: Store credit card number in order functionality returned.
• The function 'fn_update_image_alt_text' removed.
• Ultimate Edition: Add store: Now if the 'Share products' option is enabled, the new product has links for additional categories.
• Searchanise add-on updated.
• Addons: Access restriction: Domain check routine optimized.

What is new in version 3.0.3:

• Community Edition Discontinued
• Special Russian Build

What is new in version 3.0.1:

• New version, CS-Cart Ultimate.
• Editing blocks in the new block manager has become more flexible.
• The default storefront skin has been totally remade.

What is new in version 2.2.1:

• There's a new admin panel look and feel, customer notifications, Janrain social login feature, vendor rating and testimonials in the Multi-Vendor Edition and a pack of improvements out there for you to use.
• The CS-Cart mobile administration tool Twigmo is another great new addition.

Requirements:

• MySQL 4.1 or higher
• PHP 5.3 or higher