While I've built oven a dozen Drupal-based websites spanning almost 2 years, my contact with e-commerce within Drupal has been limited. Two of my latest projects brought me face to face with a need for e-commerce, though, and while I toyed with the idea of using ZenCart once again, after installing it and relearning how to work with it, I immediately uninstalled it and turned back to Drupal.
Faced with two choices, Ubercart and the e-Commerce modules, I was left a bit bewildered. Back when Drupal was still in 4.6, I used e-Commerce for a website where users were rewarded with points via the Userpoints module, and with these points were able to purchase items using E-commerce. It worked well but because it was when I was still very new to Drupal, I remembered it being cumbersome, difficult to configure, and just a big headache, and that was without needing an actual merchant account or payment gateway.
NOTE: These evaluations are based on using Drupal 5.2 with eCommerce 3.3 and Ubercart Alpha7b.
So, for all these reasons when an e-commerce site fell into my lap a couple months ago, I chose Ubercart.
Another project came my way shortly after which used a variation of modules that led me to believe e-Commerce was the way to go, plus I wanted to know how well it held up in comparison - so for that project, I chose e-Commerce.
Having worked with both in overlapping time frames these past few months, I've got a pretty good understanding on how each works, the differences between them, the pros and cons as I see them, and community behind them, yadda yadda. And so here we go, let's jump right in -
E-Commerce
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Endlessly extensible | UI is difficult and confusing |
| More options for contributed modules | Requires a lot of theming |
| Been around the block longer | Feels bloated and cumbersome |
Ubercart
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| More ready to go out of the box | Difficult to customize some areas |
| Lots of jQuery built in | Lots of jQuery built in |
| Vibrant, active community | Still in alpha |
| User interface is awesome | Not as many modules available |
| Payment Gateways | e-Commerce | Ubercart |
|---|---|---|
| 2Checkout | No | Yes |
| Authorize.net | Yes | Yes |
| CCard | Yes | No |
| CyberSource | No | Yes |
| Eurobill | Yes | No |
| Eway | Yes | No |
| e-xact | Yes | No |
| Fast Transact Direct | No | Yes |
| Google Checkout | Yes | No |
| iTransact | Yes | No |
| Moneris | No | Yes |
| Ogone PSP | No | Yes |
| Paypal | Yes | Yes |
| Viaklix | No | Yes |
| Wonderpay | No | Yes |
| Worldpay | Yes | No |
| Additional Functionality | e-Commerce | Ubercart |
|---|---|---|
| File Downloads | Yes | Yes (separate contrib) |
| Donations | Yes | No |
| Role Grants/Purchases | Yes | Yes (separate contrib) |
| Auctions | Yes | No |
To touch on a few points... Ubercart is strong in that is has a much better user interface, makes more sense to someone not very savvy in the ways of Drupal to manage a store, has a lot of built-in, out of the box features that don't require a lot of customization and frustration, including some cool jQuery usage.
On the same token, that also makes it a bit if a pain to customize in some ways, since you have to strip these things out, overwrite them, etc. E-Commerce gives you what you need, but from there you need to mold it into the desired result.
You may also notice I mention jQuery as both a pro and con for Ubercart. I love jQuery. I've been using it more and more and I'm still amazed at how easy it can be. But, like I said, if you don't want these added features, want to customize the way specific things look and behave, you need to strip them out or overwrite them.
The Community
Community and buzz around projects can be incredibly important. The Ubercart community is active on http://ubercart.org. The guys working on the project answer questions quickly, are friendly, and the community feels vibrant. People are jumping in and writing modules which will possibly bring Ubercart's features up to par with e-Commerce, as well. One thing that has always bothered me, though, is when a project has it's own website and, more specifically, has it's own issue queue. I understand the reasoning behind it, but it tends to make things feel disjointed and confusing.
As for e-Commerce, there are some guys working really hard on it and the issue queue moves quickly with issues being fixed daily. e-Commerce 4 has been released in alpha, which is supposed to be a big improvement and sounds very promising. There's often activity in #drupal-ecommerce, and they have opened http://www.drupalecommerce.org as a more centralized place for communications on the project, raising funds, and building a community. The community doesn't feel as strong here, but appears to be growing and is very positive.
So which is better?
Well, I'm still not sure. There may be no solid answer. If you want to get a site up quickly, Ubercart may be the way to go. If you need something highly customized, then e-Commerce may be the way to go. For many, Ubercart has been the answer to all their shopping cart problems. But in the end, I failed to find anything it actually offered that e-Commerce could not do, it just might require some work to get there. Edited: After my original post I came to realize this is not quite true. There are a few things Ubercart offers that e-Commerce does not. Most importantly, as I see it, is a one page checkout. Ubercart has a really nicely done one page checkout, while e-Commerce's leaves much to be desired.
If nothing else, perhaps having them both will give us two strong options for using e-commerce in Drupal. We'll see how well e-Commerce 4 goes, as well as where Ubercart leads us in a final release. And if all else fails, there's always ZenCart.
Just kidding, of course!
Comments
With ubercart you have to be
With ubercart you have to be a drupal rocket scientist to set it up, I agree zencart is the best by far and most intuitive, ubercart requires too many modules and too much hassle.
good idea?
you really think e-commerce is a good idea to dive into?
im thinking about doing so myself.
________________________________
Chrissy
Any Drupal site is going to
Any Drupal site is going to come with Drupal's learning curve. But any path you choose comes with that, as well. I think in the long run, learning Drupal is beneficial for anyone, but I may be biased in that. ;)
In things like Zencart, you need to figure out how to edit all sorts of files just to change your logo or get things vaguely looking the way you want. It has a whole set of it's own issues I don't want to get into.
Do I think Drupal e-commerce, using either Ubercart or the e-Commerce modules is better than Zencart? Yes. Do I think there are still some options which may be lacking? Yes. You need to define your needs, make sure your choice fulfills them, and choose. I've also used things like Miva Merchant extensively in the past. It's pricier, but it comes w/ a lot of things neither of these do. It also has it's own limitations.
So, yeah, there's no easy answer. But at least with Drupal you can more easily extend your needs, especially as you learn it and learn to love it!
Spread the Drupal love.
zencart/drupal?
hi, can you show any good drupal sites which use the e-commerce modules?
thanks
Notebook City
Here's an example of an Ubercart computer store: http://www.notebookcity.co.nz/
drupal or zencart, or both?
hi, i need a workable solution for my e-commerce site (www.prankster101.com/rsto) where the emphasis is on commerce and content and to create a community.
and i just found this:
http://drupal.org/node/99428
and this:
http://drupal.org/node/199279
it talks about the need for using drupal as a cms/e-commerce solution. it also talks about the need for community.
after a little bit of soul searching, and as stated by someone in the threads, here are my options that i was considering:
A. Keep ZenCart
B. Keep ZenCart and add Drupal
C. Start from scatch with Drupal + e-Commerce/UberCart
apparently, there is a zencart/drupal integration module. i am intrigued by this.
what i want are the following:
store: videogames, music, dvd etc but i also want a record label, fashion label
digital downloads
forum/portal/community
authorised users
cms/online magazine/blog
user generated content
i have an icarus line fansite project that i would like to "integrate"/make part of rather than have as a separate site (more details below). but depending on costs etc, i might just do this diy.
i have had some work done on my zencart site and (link above) i don't want all the work on the zencart to be wasted. as this would involve loss of money etc. but i don't know what to do. i love drupal and i hate the admin section of zencart. so i am inclined to go with option B/C. preferably B.
basically, i want a website and an e-commerce site with the added advantage of it being a portal and allowing a community to flourish. stuff like it acting like youtube/myspace where you can add videos etc would also be nice.
let me know what you think. what will be the costs and projected completion time for the site etc? can i do this by myself? i am already going to buy the new book on drupal 6 so that should come in handy.
finally, here are the band faniste details, and this is what the frontman sent me (obviously, the stuff above takes number one priority, but if we can get the above right, then the following should be REALLY easy - i can take care of the content section - but again, the ability to stream videos etc would be nice):)
"these are things i think make a good fan site...take it as you want
for the site:
complete discography...include year released and formats. also singles, comp tracks, anything else.
links to online reviews/interviews. find as much shit as you can and have it all linked. im sure some other fans would be able to help you with this.
photos. flickr/ myspace/ your own
a bio...
recent news and news archive
message board
lyrics/
exclusive music: once you get up and running i can send you some live tracks and other things that would be unavailable anywhere else. something to keep people coming to your site.
the more information you provide the more people will return to the site. if you make a it a definative resorce you will see that people will help you with content just as separate the sounds was built.
how is it all coming along?"
how much will it cost?
open source drupal can do communities really easily. so the site should be able to harness web2.0 and "wikinomics" to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, peer collaboration among users. the aim of the cms is to have features etc and user-submitted and editor-evaluated content with every news article and review having a comment section where registered users can post comments.
i also want authorised "editors" who can post etc.
from what i've read, drupal is better than slashcode/slashdot, and another site which incorporates the same ethics/"business model" as www.punknews.org
if you look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ and http://www.play-mag.co.uk/ you see that there are a lot more articles when you go to the site. all the sites i have shown you only show a couple of articles when you go to the screen. by showing a lot more articles, i can catch the interest of more people who will be glancing at the site.
for someone who doesn't have any coding skills, I WANT TO DO AS MUCH OF IT MYSELF AS POSSIBLE. so in most cases, i would just need simple instructions on drupal modules etc. but i would need help on theming etc.
let me know. and please email me at the_az@hotmail.com
also, would you prefer zencart or drupal/ubercart?
thanks
Drupal For Ecommerce
Hey, this is a great post! I have been indecisive about using drupal on my ecommerce site. I tried it but felt it was not as effective. My blog is using wordpress which seems like an easier and more we 2.0 friendly format. Thanks Again
Frank Sherrill
E-commerce
I had to heavily style e-commerce as the default style is very basic - this is fiddly and time-consuming. And i have a few gripes with it - shopping cart only shows items when you're logged in and the minimum purchase feature doesn't work. So I'm in the process of uninstalling e-commerce and trying out ubercart - which looks a lot more pleasing to the eye!
Fabulous
I stumbled onto this blog because I wanted to contact you about something else. This is such helpful information.
I am actually looking at the likelihood of creating two stores and was thinking about using one of each. Maybe not now.
For my sister, I was thinking of Ubercart. I showed her some sample Ubercart stores and she liked a couple of them. She, however, is not very web-savvy and can't even spell Drupal (yet). She is an experienced eBay-er though. It sounds like you would recommend Ubercart for her store?
For my personal store I was thinking e-commerce simply to have a comparison. I'm reasonably versed in Drupal (16+ sites and 16 contribs maintained). I tried using os-commerce and can't believe how bad it was. (Who in the world decided that you don't add options to a product, but add products to options? What were they smoking?) But you may have convinced me to do Ubercart for myself.
switching from ubercart to e-commerce
I've been setting up Ubercart, but have moved my Drupal site to a new host, because my old host's mysql servers were so inadequate. Now I can't get Ubercart to function properly, and am considering just scrapping it and trying e-Commerce. Is there anything in particular I need to know, to disable, etc, to be able to totally remove Ubercart and get e-Commerce to work?
Thx!
Andria
You said : "I used
You said :
"I used e-Commerce for a website where users were rewarded with points via the Userpoints module, and with these points were able to purchase items using E-commerce"
This is a feature that I presently need in my project. How easy is it to achieve with ubercart ?
Userpoints
The module I used for this was User Points which works with ecommerc. I don't know for sure whether it works w/ Ubercart or not, but I don't see it mentioned on the project page.
Userpoints & Ubercart
http://drupal.org/project/userpoints_ubercart
Thanks a lot
Hi. Thanks for the post. I'm standing in front of an ecommerce project... well, you convinced me. I'm gonna go with ubercart.
Would you know how the two
Would you know how the two compare in terms of subscription management?
I am setting up a site with monthly recurring subscriptions, and both claim to be able to handle that but that is all so far :)
Unfortunately I don't know.
Unfortunately I don't know. I'm hoping to do a series of more specific ecommerce in Drupal articles in the next few months using the new releases of e-Commerce and Ubercart, so perhaps that's a topic I'll uncover. But subscriptions hasn't been something I've specifically done yet.
Thanks a lot
Helped much.
Very useful information!
Thanks a lot brenda, for posting the results of your investigation!
The first paragraph of your post defines my own approach to Drupal, as I have constructed nearly a dozen of sites with this amazing CMS but have almost no experience with e-commerce sites.
The thing is I also have set up a catalog for a jewelry store using zen-cart but currently I'm moving it to Drupal and I was trying to make a decision between ecommerce and ubercart.
I've installed and started to test both solutions and just wanted to contribute with my opinion about this dilemma. I liked so much ubercart's interface and structure, you can tell with only a fast look that it was designed with "ease of use" as one of the principal objectives. However, after I started using it some limitations began to arise.
On the other hand, as I've learned to use Drupal almost without the need for turorials and handbooks, I want a system I will be able to customize as much as I want and it seems ecommerce is the logical choice for me. I hope within a few weeks I will be able to tell you guys which one of these two Drupal add-ons made it for me.
Good luck to everyone!
I 2nd that
Great Post. Very Informative. I would use Ubercart, but I won't touch Alpha code.
E-Commerce claims to work with Anonymous Download purchase, but for the life of me, I can't get it to work.
Ubercart or E-Commerce?
I'd be very interested in hearing your results and which one you've chosen!
Selling music
A friend of mine asked me to make a website for his indie label integrating a shop so he can sell his music.
"Ubercart [...] makes more sense to someone not very savvy in the ways of Drupal to manage a store [...]"
This statement and that I want to set up the site quickly lets me believe that I will use Ubercart, mainly because it's the one which will be easier for him to handle.
Thanks for the comparison!
Ubercart and VAT / MWST
@Berlin Musik
how did you solve the VAT problem in ubercart?
Hey Brenda, thanks for
Hey Brenda, thanks for taking the time to do this comparison. Why not do the next one soon with ecommerce4 vs Ãœbercart-alpha8?
My wish is that both sets of developers could work together! Ultimately though, I think Ãœbercart is the better product. Sorry devs from ecommerce :(
Unify them!
I too wish that the two would be unified, and specifically that ubercart should be the core project to which code from the ecommerce module would be added. I have been following the development process for v4 of ecommerce, and I have lost hope in their project. I get the impression that they have much too much on their plate to move forward in a timely fashion.
Inventory Management
Thanks for the very informative article!
Can you elaborate on the inventory management for each of the different options? I wanted to create a site that would be managed by a non-technical team that is currently using Yahoo Stores. Are there relatively easy-to-understand tools for adding new products, assigning them to different product categories, etc?
Some insight...
If by inventory management, you're just looking for adding and managing products, I think with the right setup either solution will be good for the team. It's mostly about how you decide to set the site up in the first place. Ubercart has a catalog module that does some of the groundwork for you, but any custom solution using Taxonomy and Views to display the catalog would be good.
If you're looking for actual stock level control, Ubercart has a couple add-on solutions, but neither are built in. You may experience hiccups or incomplete features w/ either of them. I can't speak for e-commerce, but I think they may have some simple out-of-the-box solution. Be worth looking into.
Nice comparison. I'd love to
Nice comparison. I'd love to see some more detailed comparison of the themability and expandability. A one page checkout is nice as an option for E-commerce, but in the present form the multi-page checkout is very flexible for shipping options, discounts, payment options, etc.
Not exactly sure what you're
Not exactly sure what you're thinking, but you should find the "themability and expandability" to be comparable since both systems are built on top of Drupal's existing APIs (like node/theme APIs). This means anything can be overridden or extended. Ubercart just goes a step beyond in offering some default settings out of the box to help those with beginner experience in Drupal. For example, you needn't enable our catalog module, but it's there if you don't have any bright ideas about how to use taxonomy and Views to make a catalog yourself.
+n for the ubercart project.
+n for the ubercart project. I can't say enough about how smoothly my ubercart implementations have gone due to (1) a well designed UI and (2) a hugely supportive community.
But what features?
I'm migrating an e-commerce site to Drupal for a client now, and I need these features:
* Coupon codes with expirations
* Giftcards/certificates
* User accounts (login to purchase)
* Taxes
* Shipping
* Inventory
I expect the basics to be covered (integration with payment gateway, easily add products, etc.) but it's these little things that make things harder.
Will either or both of these do it?
Features
Good question and one I plan to address eventually, as time permits. I don't have all the answers as I haven't researched into all the features thoroughly. I can tell you briefly, though:
Coupons - supported by both e-Commerce and Ubercart.
User accounts - supported. Ubercart goes a step further in that if someone purchases a product without an account, it creates an account for them afterwards. Both also support anonymous checkout.
Taxes - At least the basics are supported, but I haven't played with this much to know the extent.
Shipping - I believe they both support all the major shipping methds. UPS, USPS, FedEx. There may be a few contrib modules which provide other methods. Ubercart also has a flat rate per product/order shipping.
Inventory - Both support inventory management, but I'm not sure how they compare.
When I get more time I hope to follow-up and go into more detail on the various features. I may wait until e-Commerce v4 to become more stable and Ubercart to get to beta or final, though.
thanks for the review
thanks for the review
This is a very useful
This is a very useful review. Well, I took the opposite route and am using ZenCart for an online bookstore after evaluating ubercart and ecommerce four months ago. The thing that tilted the decision in favour of ZenCart was the excellent admin manual that has been recently published.
I have also found ZenCart to be pretty feature rich and extremely easy to use. So, I am a bit mystified as to why you think it's lacking. Is it because of the relatively difficult method of creating non-cart pages or the lack of drupal's taxonomy system?
I would be very interested in hearing from you.
ZenCart vs Drupal
In a life before Drupal, I used ZenCart a lot. It did the job. It's feature rich. It often needed a lot of customization which required editing a lot of files, hacking into the core of ZenCart itself. It always felt so dirty.
Drupal is modular by design. Products are nodes in both Ubercart and e-Commerce, allowing for endless flexibility. Once you go Drupal, it's hard to use anything else because anything else seems to lack in basic functionality, feature rich or not.
This is just my opinion, though. :)
Thanks for your reply. Ah,
Thanks for your reply. Ah, yes, the drupal node system - that does give you so much power.
Regarding ZenCart customization, we have done a fair bit of it so far and we have been able to do it easily using over rides and without touching the core. The ZenCart admin manual has really helped. We started with zero knowledge of ZenCart and the manual has made us rather advanced users of the system.
override
I'm waving between ZenCart, Drupal and Joomla for a wine shop. ZenCart is easy to use out of the box, but although there are overrides, imho the code is horrible (try to change the navigation into a nested tree with a html list structure and you'll know what I mean). I would have chosen Joomla, but still waiting for VirtueMart to work with Version 1.5. e-Commerce seemed complicated and still in alpha. Today I found Ubercart and will give it a try.
Great Review
Really good job on this review. This helps me evaluate which system to go with so much. Its also funny the only experience I have with e-commerce is building a Zen-Cart site. Looks like Drupal is the way to go. I put the e-commerce home page in my feed reader to follow the progress to version 4. I like that you've evaluated that it is more flexible.Thx.
e-Commerce v4 is going to be
e-Commerce v4 is going to be light years ahead of v3.3, and we are looking making it so much more flexible and also being able to do things like affiliate payments, receipt tracking, and very easily interface to be able to implement any type of customer system.
No improvement with
No improvement with Ecommerce 4. I'm trying to use it now, which is proving very difficult. Its functionality claims seem to offer far more than Ubercart, but on using it doesn't even do the basics (or has made it so difficult that I can't figure out what is missing/needs configuration). Looks like a module that a lot of effort has gone into, but without better documentation/forum support this is going nowhere fast :(
A manual for e-commerce?
Are there any plans for a manual that explains not just basic e-commerce functions and features but also the new features? I know there is a good handbook on drupal.org, but it lacks screenshots, one of the most fundamental requirements in making people understand an application. They are also a pain to read on screen.
Even a 50-100 page manual with screenshots would be a killer in enabling more widespread e-commerce adoption. The ZenCart admin manual recently published is an excellent example. With it in hand, someone totally new to ZenCart can become a fairly advanced user within a very, very short time.
I agree with you :-)
I agree with you :-)
e-Commerce v4 looks very,
e-Commerce v4 looks very, very promising. I haven't had a chance to use it, yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
Here's a list of v4 goals, many of which appear to already be implemented, in v4 for those unaware: http://groups.drupal.org/node/3131
other solutions...
If you're coming into Drupal ecommerce from a system such as ZenCart or OSCommerce (*shudder*), then I suggest that you look at Ubercart first and see if it meets your needs.
Go ahead
Wonderful review, good answers. Let's not go into "zencart vs. Drupal". I don't know Zencart, but I heard it's a much easier to use and cleaned-up application that originally spinned of from grandpa os-commerce?
I'm all about usability, which will be crucial in Drupal conquering new groups of users (corporate on one hand and not-so-savvy in PHP on the other hand). And because of this I'm always enthralled of people mentioning good Handbooks and Usability as a reason for choosing a CMS. Yesyesyes. That's what people do - they don't have more patience like me or you when we try out a new application like, let's say, Textpattern.
And speaking of Usability: Brenda, please dont't hit me for coming here the first time and being impolite, but disable the ugly indenting of comments for the drupal standard comments active here, it's one line of css: .indented { margin-left: 0px;}. It's better readable. ;)
Rock on!
Yes, good handbooks is
Yes, good handbooks is always a good thing. Everyone should help in that department. :)
I like flat comment look, too, but it does make things harder to understand unless you're using quoting, I think. Besides, this is just a stripped down and slightly altered version of Zen - some day I'll actually put more work into this site... some day.
Handbooks for e-commerce?
Handbooks for e-commerce? Its kind of hard to contribute when I can't figure our how to use it in the first place ;)
E-commerce handbooks
There may be better sources I'm unaware of... but take a look at:
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/ecommerce
http://www.drupalecommerce.org/documentation
great review
I've struggled choosing a ecommerce package for some time now. Your review has been a great help and it's nice to read an impartial review of both packages. Good job.
For what it's worth... I'm looking into a Drupal installation for a customer and I'm uploading Ubercart as i type this (*but* I'm going to have a look at the ecommerce v4alpha as well)...
PS: I like the comment indents and think it makes the threads more readable. imho of course ;)
Russian translation
I have made a translation to russian and post it on Drupal's russian community site.
So russian-speaking people could read it:
http://drupal.ru/node/8648
help
i found your module similar to what i want to do- language translation. In my academic project i need to develop a module in drupal which converts drupal site in my native language- Gujarati. Will you guide me to do this? For this which modules i need to use-like translation module.