Today, let’s talk about the two open source frameworks OPENCART and WORDPRESS used in the process of building a replica website, and compare them.
From the developer’s perspective
Let’s first get to know these two frameworks from the developer’s perspective.
WORDPRESS and OPENCART are both open source systems developed in PHP language, and are constantly updated. Their official and development communities are very active.
Let’s first get to know the WORDPRESS framework.
WORDPRESS uses PHP + MYSQL development framework. It is a highly compatible CMS blog program system that is widely used in global website building. The original intention of WORDPRESS was to create a blog platform. We can see it at a glance from its official source database table structure.
From the above table, we can see that the native WORDPRESS system has only a few database tables, such as comment tables, article post tables, user tables, etc., which are very refined and have a very simple structure. However, due to the excellent compatibility of WORDPRESS, the development community is numerous and active, and the WORDPRESS ecosystem is constantly enriched. In theory, any type of website can be built with WORDPRESS. In the independent website of the counterfeit brand mall, the “framework + plug-in” of “wordpress + woo-commerce” is generally used to drive the entire mall website, and its table structure has been greatly expanded.
It can be seen that after installing the woo-commerce plug-in and adding the theme, the number of tables is suddenly expanded to dozens, and all the mall system functions are driven as a whole through a plug-in, such as: product functions, shopping carts, settlement, marketing tools, orders, etc.
Let’s get to know the OPENCART framework.
OPENCART is one of the three most prestigious open source e-commerce website building systems in the world. Its biggest feature is the use of the MVC framework structure.
What is the MVC framework structure? Friends who have done software development know that M refers to the model, V is the view, and C is the controller. The purpose of using MVC is to separate the implementation code of M and V, so that the same program can use different forms of expression, and the reusability is very good. Therefore, the biggest advantage of the MVC structure is easy expansion and secondary development. This determines that the OPENCART code structure is very clear, H5+C3 fully responsive reuse layered expression, and the efficiency is very high.
OPENCART was originally designed for the mall system. Multi-language, currency, products, orders, shopping carts, marketing tools, etc. are very complete and mature, and easy to maintain.
Ecological community perspective
Next, we compare the two frameworks from an ecological perspective.
WORDPRESS has a very rich plug-in and template ecosystem. Major development communities have conducted a lot of secondary development based on the original framework. For example, the famous theme forest (themeforest.net) provides a large number of exquisite themes.
In addition to exquisite themes, WORDPRESS also has a rich collection of plug-ins.
The highly rich theme and plug-in market makes the WORDPRESS framework perform very well. In theory, we can use the WORDPRESS framework to design any desired website.
On the other hand, OPENCART, because of its single application scenario and only focusing on e-commerce application scenarios, its ecology is not as rich as WORDPRESS. On the OPENCART official website, a certain number of extensions are provided, such as: theme templates, language packs, plug-ins, payment gateways, logistics distribution, plug-in modules, orders, statistics, etc., as shown below:
Some other development tribes also provide considerable extensions, such as the famous JOURNAL theme, PAV theme, etc., with standardized codes, H5+C3 efficient and fully responsive, and perform very well in e-commerce application scenarios.
Which framework should I use to build a replica website?
If you want to build a content-oriented website, such as a personal blog, company website, forum, etc., then the WORDPRESS framework is definitely the best choice. “Born for blogging” is the biggest highlight of WORDPRESS. Moreover, its SEO structure is optimized to the extreme and is very friendly to search engines. For example, our company’s official website (replicasexpert.com) is built using the WORDPRESS framework.
If you want to build an e-commerce shopping website, such as a brand store, then the OPENCART framework is better. Every profession has its own specialty. OPENCART itself is “born for shopping malls”. The framework performs better and has better performance. Moreover, it is more accurate for shopping conversion.
In the construction of imitation brand websites, after years of use and comparison, I personally recommend using the OPENCART framework for development. I have gone through multiple rounds of comparative tests and found that with the same server configuration, the same audience traffic, the same products, and the same price, OPENCART is much better than WORDPRESS in terms of order conversion and quantity.
Especially in terms of responsiveness, WORDPRESS has a single table structure and all the mall functions are integrated into a Woo-Commerce plug-in. It has the disadvantage of “using a USB drive to start an entire computer operating system”. Therefore, with the increase of plug-ins, the website performance is very bloated and the opening speed is very slow, which will greatly affect the order conversion rate.
For example, when I open a WORDPRESS mall system with a few more products, the CPU and memory resources are immediately consumed in the first few seconds after opening.
Similarly, on the same server, I opened an OPENCART mall system of the same size.
The CPU and memory consumption are much smoother.
This is why OPENCART performs much better than WORDPRESS in the mall system.
Disadvantages in concurrent performance will affect the conversion rate. When your traffic is bursty, such as live real-time traffic, KOL concentrated traffic, continuous traffic, etc., because of the bloated problem, it will cause orders to be lost and customers to jump out.
Some people say, then I can increase the server configuration, right? In theory, it is possible, but it is a temporary solution. First, the cost of renting a server has increased significantly. Second, the limitations of the framework structure must have defects in concurrency.
WORDPRESS is easy to use, but in terms of long-term business, I personally insist on using OPENCART to build a imitation website for many years. Of course, this is just my personal opinion, for reference only, everything is subject to your own actual situation.
In addition, in order to meet the needs of our customers, the company provides two versions of the imitation brand website building service, WORDPRESS+WOO version and OPENCART, and maintains long-term updates.
WORDPRESS + WOO Multi-gateway Edition
Finally, what framework you use should be based on your actual application scenario. There is no better one between WORDPRESS and OPENCART, they just excel in different areas. The most important thing is to choose a framework that suits you according to your business needs.
