As far as I am aware CS was built from the ground up and have absolutely nothing to do with X, although they are based in Russia.
I have never used X before but from what I have heard a lot of people prefer CS. I would certainly recommend CS cart to anyone in need of a shopping cart solution. It’s fabulous with great support and they have a customization service available which is great and offers reasonable and competetive pricing - should you need it.
Hope you chose CS and join us all here.
Simon
Hello,
I haven’t really used the X-Cart, but I did browse around and played with it for a while. I don’t think you can really compare X-Cart to CS-Cart.
CS-Cart is just the next level shopping cart system. Generally I tell people “You Get What You Pay For” but, I think with CS-Cart you get a lot more for what you!
[url]http://cscart.blogspot.com/2006/11/interview-with-cs-cart-ceo-vladimir-v.html[/url]
Most of the information you require is there
There is really no comparison between cs-cart and X-craap, for example with cs you get over $1000 in FREE addons* and modules that you would have to pay for at other carts and the modders here don’t rip people off and make them pay for mods like the scumbags over at X-Craap do…in addition their are alot of newer innovations and additions that other carts don’t have plus the features that are coming are incredible…their really is no comparison…CS is the better cart.
*[url]http://vb.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=499[/url]
Ive tried and tested almost every Cart known to man-kind…
and now Im running CS-Cart…
The rest just dont have what it takes…
[SIZE=6][COLOR=red]Plain and Simple…
CS-CART ROCKS ![/COLOR][/SIZE]
The others are playing catchup… and not very well, unless you are prepared to pay independant developers to make the cart do what CS already does…
I currently own and use both X-Cart and CS-Cart and they are ‘both’ excellent cart packages but are quite different in cost-vs-options.
X-Cart is based heavily on the ability to add additional modules to get it to exactly how you need it for your business whereas; CS-Cart has now thrown many similar modules into the default package of 1.3.4 whether they are needed or not to the end user. This can be good or bad depending on the needs of your business.
I personally need most of the features within the new CS-Cart and more so it was a very attractive package for the cost. But to someone who only needs a highly reliable ‘basic’ store, these additional added features only add unnecessary bloat and can result in degraded performance because of additional queries running during page loads. Yes, modules can be turned off if not needed but, that doesn’t remove the hard coded calls to ‘IF’ they are active or not within the code everywhere and that also degrades performance on a site with heavy traffic.
They each also have many unique abilities that in most cases break down to personal preferences or needs.
I am a PHP developer and have been following the CS-Cart development since it’s beginning and am quite impressed with the progress thus far. I finally decided to purchase after the release of 1.3.4 because it just didn’t offer the features I needed in the prior revisions. There are still many issues that need ironed out and improved and I would love to see more attention put into security (salted md5 would be a great addition). This cart is very actively developed so I’m confident these improvements will be made in time and the end result will be awesome.
Now comes cost comparison:
If you just need a very basic store, it is very hard to consider either one being superior to the other however; if you do plan to use most of the additional features then the winner is most certainly CS-Cart for the money (for most people).
Those who require much more advanced customizations and are somewhat experienced with both code and store functions will be better off (at this point) with X-Cart. The reason why is primarily because it is a much more seasoned package and has many more 3rd party developers familiar with its code. It is a very hackable (modable) package so can be made into anything needed with enough time/effort/money. CS-Cart will also be this way eventually but it will take some time.
My X-Cart package includes about a dozen additional modules (x-cart and 3rd party). It’s total cost including all of these is over $900.00 USD. Is it a better package at this point than the current CS-Cart release? The answer to that is a very big YES (for my needs on that domain) but not everyone needs all of those bells & whistles so that cost would be harder to swallow when you get many similar features in CS-Cart for $200.00.
Reading that above; it may appear that I am a supporter of X-Cart but that is FAR from true. I in fact DESPISE one very important aspect of that company.
X-Cart ‘Support’ is VERY poor and that is quick to determine on their forums ‘after’ you are given client access (I never would have purchased X-Cart if I could have read through those forums first). Once you purchase that cart, you are really at the mercy of the more experienced members of their forum community for support needs unless you have coding experience yourself. Many of those members you will soon find are either, obnoxious self-centered fools or they will demand money for services you need. I cannot speak for the support of CS-Cart developers because I haven’t had the need for them yet but I can say the forum community is much friendlier and more freely helpful.
Another thing I don’t like concerning X-Cart is that most of the 3rd party modules available for it are encoded by the developers. I personally hate putting anything with hidden source on my servers unless from a known and respected company and you should also feel the same. PHP code can be very dangerous whether intentionally or if just poorly written so always demand to see the source of anything you obtain from 3rd parties you don’t absolutely trust.
All in all this boils down to (in my opinion):
If your experience level is less than intermediate: Get CS-Cart
If you require the additional features without further modification: Get CS-Cart
If your budget is very tight or you simply want the most bang for your buck: Get CS-Cart
If you quickly need a very advanced customized store regardless of cost: Get X-Cart
If you don’t mind waiting a few more months for the above: Get CS-Cart
If you only want a very basic store with very few or no extra features: Get X-Cart (for slightly better performance)
===============
One other thing I would like to bring up because only these 2 cart packages offer it in the price range is, Custom Product Configuring.
This is a standard feature now in CS-Cart and available as an add-on from X-Cart.
This is a very important feature to my needs and I have to give 2 thumbs up to the CS-Cart developers for the version in this cart. It is 100% better than the one offered from X-Cart. There really is no fair comparison, The CS-Cart version is simply that much better.
ok, I’m done now 
Interesting thread. I never used XCart so I cannot make a comparison but I have used several others and here I am…a CS Cart user and glad of it.
It was my understanding that the developers of CS Cart are ex-XCart employees.
Another point about X, which if you could see their forums, im registered member 350’ish, out of 12,000.
I was there early on and would still be there, except they banned me. (because im active in CS)
Their forums do NOT allow for discussion of any other platforms and/or features from those platforms.
So if i wanted to say" Hey X, this feature XYZ in zencart is nice, can you add it to X", you would get in trouble. The censor everything, they do NOT listen to their customers.
Not hard to figure out, try adding a product in XCart admin demo vs CS cart admin demo…its laughable,…takes like 22 clicks in X, takes maybe 7 in CS (something close to these numbers)
Us X users have been asking for changings for 4 yrs, and yet simple things lik AJAX, still dont exist.
Another shady business practice…is, check out their home page and see what Version they Offer for sale 4.1.4. But when you buy it and login to forums, you read , 4.1.4 is “development” release, aka BETA PRODUCT.
so you just spent 200 bucks on a cart you thought had all these features, to find out its a BETA product.
I just made our first switch from X to CS with a client, and I will post up his testimonial from a non technical store owners perspective. Hands down CS is just easier to manage your store.
ETInteractive: 4.1.4 has been gold and available in the current tree since 12/08/06
Xcart has always had 2 trees. Stable and Development.
So unless they canned 4.0.19 as STABLE, the v4.1.4 is still the Development tree.
And if you search XCart forums you will see just about every Xcart modder tell the noobies NOT to use an Xcart version until .12 release or up.
and just another point. if you tried posting this same information on xcart, you r post would be deleted and at a minimum be warned , if not banned for this.
The fact that we are even having this discussion, is a tribute to CS cart and their product, nothing to hide from competition!!
[QUOTE]The fact that we are even having this discussion, is a tribute to CS cart and their product, nothing to hide from competition!![/QUOTE]
The absolute truth. CS-Cart is a superior product due to both the developers’ skills and their willingness to listen to the needs of their customers.
X-Cart stopped listening to their customers ages ago. Unfortunately, since there was no way to view the forum posts, we had no way of knowing that things were left broken in spite of many complaints ranging as far back as two years previous.
Bob
[quote name=‘noob’]is it better for us to keep tweaking our X-Cart store, or should we start fresh with CS-Cart?[/QUOTE]
Start fresh with CS, it’s hands down the absolute best e-commerce platform available and is well worth the time to switch over. X-Craap is like an old pair of soured diapers…
I would just like to add that while i have never actually used X as such, i have played with their demo and found it not only ugly but also very difficult to navigate and use. Their forum is only viewable to those who have purchased a license which i find worrying.
If you are looking for a basic cart with good support, very cheap and a great modding community then look at CubeCart. If you want something more advanced than most, with every feature you could think of then CS is the number one choice.
The only complaint i have with CS is its lack of third party addons. There doesnt seem to be any stores selling skins or mods which is a great opportunity for those with the experience but the thing with CS is it already has most of the mods you can think of as standard and its stock skins are some of the best on the market 
We are working on selling skins soon, but we have other obligations, first.
[quote name=‘noob’]is it better for us to keep tweaking our X-Cart store, or should we start fresh with CS-Cart?[/QUOTE]
Start fresh with CS, it’s hands down the absolute best e-commerce platform available and is well worth the time to switch over. X-Craap is like an old pair of soured diapers…