What is xShop? What is osCMax? What is osCommerce?

[michael_s]

So you have come across this site and are not sure what it is all about. This will bring you up to speed on what all these terms mean and what the heck we are talking about.


What is osCommerce

First, I will start with osCommerce. What is it? Simply, osCommerce is a web based shopping cart application. It is free, open source and has been around for quite a long time. It is robust, flexible and customizable. Thousands of web sites use it as their e-commerce engine.

Why is it called osCommerce? osCommerce is short for open source Commerce. That is it. Nothing more than that.

Who would use osCommerce? It ranges from the small one man startup web business to large web businesses. The reasons for using osCommerce are as varied as the thousands of web sites that are using it. Bottom line, it is free and relatively easy to set up, extremely customizable and best of all open source. This means every nook and cranny of the application is open for end users to customize if so motivated.

The main drawback to using osCommerce is that it is missing a lot of the most basic features that most web store owners are looking for upon installation. These features can be added by hacking the code base, but for the beginner this is a daunting task that can take many hours of trial and error. That is where osCMax comes in.


What is osCMax?

osCMax is short for open source Commerce Maximized. It is a supercharged version of osCommerce that includes all the key features that osCommerce is missing.

The key goal of osCMax is to save the web developer and end user the many hours needed to manually add in all the extras that are missing from osCommerce. Adding in all these extra features by default, the developer and store owner start with a much more usable and flexible store application right out of the box. A key feature of osCMax is to maintain compatibility with the standard osCommerce code base. This guarantees the maximum amount of compatibility for further customization.

Of all the 'loaded' osCommerce packages, osCMax is compatible with more osCommerce contributions than any of the others. This is crucial for most web developers.

I will not detail all the extras that are included in osCMax compared to osCommerce, for that you can visit osCMax.com.


What is xShop?

xShop is a Windows Vista/Windows XP compatible application that hooks right into your osCommerce or osCMax web shop and allows you to configure the store settings, manage customers, orders - control every available option right from your PC desktop.

Without going into a sales pitch, the advantages of this type of setup are pretty straightforward. xShop maximizes security and speeds up work flow. xShop allows you to do more work in less time. xShop adds features not found in osCommerce or osCMax, and because it does not modify any of the osCommerce or osCMax code (or use any of it for that matter) we are free to add new features without fear of causing any problems with your live store. Upgrades are seamless, and new features can be added as they are created. xShop adds the stability and expandability that has been missing from osCommerce and osCMax.

Conclusion
Hopefully this clarifies what we are all about, what xShop, osCommerce and osCMax are, and whether or not any of this matters to you.

If you have any questions about any of this article, feel free to ask in our Before You Buy forum.