So Im on the edge between CS cart and X-Cart and Im looking for someone to push me over (in either direction).
The best thing I can think to do is list my concerns and see what kind of feedback I get.
X-Cart is moving to version 5 in 07/2010 and it will require a complete template redesign from the ground up which would cost me a ton of $$ as I’m outsourcing the design. Will CS Cart have this problem or can templates be moved over between version changes relatively easy? I ask because I noticed CS Cart uses Smarty for template design and Smarty is set to release an entirely new version soon. If the newer version of CS Cart upgrades to the latest version of Smarty, will I need to redesign my site?
How accessible/responsive is the support team for CS Cart? Currently I cant even register for the forums at X-Cart to ask questions there and the support at the 1-800# seemed uneducated on their own product.
I liked the auto SEO features of X-Cart where SEO URL’s were auto created during product creation. Is this something that CS cart offers as well? I did not see it during the demo but it might be an option thats hidden.
There does not seem to be a lot of negative reviews of CS Cart (this is great!) but the one thing that I do see mentioned is the requirement for a fast webserver because CS Cart can have speed issues. My host is godaddy and I have a dedicated linux account. Is this ok and can anyone comment on the speed issue? A slow website is an instant killer!
Does CS cart offer the ability to modify a cart? For example if someone orders a bedroom set from me but the dresser is on backorder, can I modify the dresser status and update the rest of the cart as shipped?
With 2.0.9 coming out soon, should I wait to have my site developed for 2.0.8 or will there be a script to simplify the upgrade?
In an attempt to get my post back on the tracks, I appreciate the feedback the questions werent really about hosting so much as the minimum hosting requirements.
Anyway, if someone could maybe elaborate more on the other questions I would appreciate it.
I’m only very new to CS-Cart and am still playing around with the trial version, but I can answer a couple of questions here:
Support - I think the support is great especially compared to other solutions, I have asked a few questions and have received detailed responses very quickly. I have asked about specific modifications as well which were answered and quotes provided. A good thing about CS-Cart over any software is that they will do their own custom mods if you need them to (allbeit, not too cheap, but worth it if your business needs it).
Hosting - Be careful of the permission limits that some host providers have. CS-Cart recommends a setting of 777. I have just moved from Hostgator to CyberLNC as Hostgator could only use a setting of 755 - whilst there is documentiation to show that it should work, I was receiving 500 server errors and my payment gateway wouldn’t work. I’m a big fan of Hostgator, their service is excellent, but they just weren’t configured for CS-Cart unfortunately and I had to move. Not too sure about a dedicated server with Godaddy, but check the permissions out. CyberLNC were great about helping with the move and everything is working perfectly, first go.
I have been playing around with the idea of just using X-Cart as well, however, I’ve found that whilst it’s alot more “mature” in some ways ie has more payment gateways integrated etc, you will need to purchase quite a few mods to get the features that come in-built with CS-Cart. Another thing is that X-Cart also does come with a larger developer community whereas CS-Cart’s community is still quite small.
My overall impression is that CS-Cart is a lot more professional looking than X-Cart straight out of the box with more features, however you’ll need to weigh up the features and modifications that you need for your business. I would probably send through a request for pricing for the modifications you need to make your backorder system work and decide if the investment is a good idea before making my mind up.
I’m only a complete newbie, but I hope this helps a little
I am waiting for V2.0.9 before buying the full version as there are a couple of strange things with V2.0.8 such as:
Quickbooks addon - I have no idea how to get this to work, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get it and it’s something that I really need.
Customer notifications - these are weird little ajax boxes in the top right hand corner that I think are easily missed. Someone kindly posted a way of adjusting these, but I would be interested to see if this is changed at all in V2.0.9.
Thumbnail sizes - these are strange too, I’m pretty sure that a designer would be able to work their way around them, but it’s something that a few people are asking about and I’d be interested to see if it’s addressed in the next version.
I went ahead with trying out 2.0.8 and the company assisting me with the template modifications agreed to fix anything that breaks with 2.0.9 for free. Hopefully it comes out within the next 2 weeks before we plan to go live with the site.
Also, in regards to your hosting issue, everyone I have spoken with says that the permission issue you speak of should not create an issue. Here are some responses
“755 is all that is allowed/required at HostGator because scripts are not run as “Nobody” they are run as your user via suPHP.
I.E. you don’t have to give the whole world read/write/execute (777) but only the user (755).
Trust me, anywhere your script recommends doing 777 you should 755 on a HostGator server (or any server running suPHP or suEXEC) and it will work just fine and be more secure than it would be on a server that allows 777. Whoever is getting internal server 500 errors on HostGator - it is either because they are trying to do 777 (which isn’t allowed for security reasons) or they have something else wrong other than permissions (it could be a lot of things, have them check the “Error Log” in their cPanel).”
and
“Hostgator is correct about suExec since it gives you ownership of the files, so 755 should work fine. 777 is a huge vulnerability and I would not recommend using those permissions. The 500 internal server errors could be caused by something else, such as some directives in the htaccess file.”
When you moved to CyberLNC did you reinstall or reconfigure CS-Cart or did you just copy over the existing config that you had with Hostgator?
We just copied what was already on hostgator. I was also told that it shouldn’t create an issue as well, and was shown a CS-Cart document that said that the site should work with permissions at 755, that’s why I went ahead with the installation on Hostgator, but I still noticed intermittent errors popping up, and there was a weird connection issue between my payment gateway and the cart which meant that I had to switch off the gateway. I’m not 100% certain that it was the permissions that caused the errors, but it’s all that we can think of.
Hostgator checked the error logs and couldn’t work out what was causing it - it actually went to L3 support who spent nearly a month investigating it, but unfortunately I still don’t know the exact cause other than someone mentioning on the forums that it’s the permissions. I just know that I wouldn’t be able to migrate my business across to CS-Cart with those errors, and I would really like to start using CS-Cart as long as I’m confident it’s stable.
It’s a shame that I had to move from hostgator - I was a very happy customer there, but the issues I was having are definitely gone now that I’ve moved.
You might have a different experience - I know that some people here are using hostgator without issue, so hopefully your site will be ok.