Top Tools and Frameworks for Building an Ecommerce Website in 2024

The global e-commerce market now covers 20-50% of total retail sales. In Asia, countries are leading, but Europe and the United States are rapidly accelerating development of online sales. By 2027, the online retail market is projected to reach $8 trillion (Statista).

The giants, like Alibaba and Amazon, dominate the e-commerce market, but smaller retail shops and businesses are increasingly making their market share in the e-commerce space.

Developers today use two main approaches to building e-commerce websites. The first involves using open-source frameworks, while the second focuses on SaaS solutions. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses.

In this article, we provide an overview of the most popular frameworks available today and explore key nuances that can influence the choice of the best solution for your needs.

Regardless of the industry or specific customer requirements, every e-commerce system must include a fundamental set of features. These features define the effectiveness of your platform.

Let’s take a closer look at this core functionality:

• Product Management

The product is the central element of any e-commerce system. Therefore, essential features include product descriptions, the ability to add, remove, or edit products, as well as inventory management and categorization for each item. Some e-commerce systems may impose limits on the number of products you can list, which could become a critical cost factor for the final solution. Another key aspect is the ability to integrate product listings with advertising platforms like Google and Amazon.

• Mobile Device Support

More than half of all e-commerce transactions are now made on mobile devices. This makes it crucial for your system to be fully optimized for mobile users, ensuring maximum convenience and security for the end customer. A mobile-friendly platform is not just a feature, it’s a key factor that can drive the growth of your business.

• Security

Handling sensitive data during online purchases, such as credit card numbers and personal customer information, demands a serious approach to security in any e-commerce system. Your platform must ensure the protection of customer data, secure transactions with banks, and safe data transmission to delivery services, among other safeguards. With online fraud evolving rapidly, maintaining security is an ongoing challenge. Constantly improving your methods for protecting customer data is essential to staying ahead and building trust.

• Plugins and Integrations

The ability to seamlessly integrate an e-commerce system with third-party services is critical. Payment and delivery systems are the top priorities, but integration with customer notification systems, advertising networks, analytics and accounting tools, and point-of-sale (POS) systems is equally important. By implementing high-quality integrations with specialized external services, you can significantly reduce both the time and cost of developing your e-commerce website.

• SEO Optimization

An e-commerce platform is a unique type of online resource that follows the general rules for indexing on the global internet. Ensuring proper search engine optimization (SEO) opens up additional opportunities for promoting your website and attracting more customers.

SaaS E-Commerce Frameworks

The SaaS approach offers a subscription-based solution for building your e-commerce website. With this model, the service provider is responsible for maintaining the system's uptime, updates, and optimization. While there are limitations in terms of personalized customization, these systems provide a comprehensive set of features for online trading and offer robust integration capabilities with external services. For businesses just starting out in the online market, this is often the most optimal choice, especially if you don't have a large business.

Advantages of Using SaaS Solutions:

• The SaaS provider continually updates and improves their services and software, ensuring that your e-commerce website stays aligned with market trends.

• When purchasing a SaaS solution, you can select the most suitable features and pricing plans, often leading to cost savings on system setup and maintenance.

• SaaS solutions guarantee fast time-to-market, with quick deployment, built-in integration with marketing platforms, and good SEO optimization.

• Security is handled by the SaaS provider, ensuring a high level of protection for your platform.

The main drawback of SaaS solutions is their rigid architecture and workflows, which may not be fully adaptable to your business logic. This can create significant challenges when integrating the system, especially if you're already running an established retail business.

Here are examples of the most popular e-commerce tools in 2024.

• WooCommerce 

WooCommerce is a customizable e-commerce plugin for WordPress that transforms any website into a fully functional online store. WooCommerce provides ready-made solutions for small and medium-sized businesses selling both physical and digital products. It’s also a great option for e-commerce startups. One of the main advantages of this tool is its easy setup and management, along with built-in SEO optimization capabilities. Additionally, WooCommerce offers a wide range of pre-built integration modules for third-party e-commerce services. The system also features a flexible pricing structure, making it adaptable to various business needs.

• Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms globally, offering a wide range of built-in features. Shopify's customer-centric approach ensures both ease of creating online stores and a seamless user experience for end customers. It enables the creation of interactive services, which can positively impact sales. In addition to essential integrations, SEO optimization, excellent mobile optimization, and easy setup, Shopify also guarantees fast scalability for any project and 24/7 developer support.

• BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that enables you to quickly build and scale your online stores. It supports multichannel sales and provides a user-friendly interface for both development and store management. This SaaS platform also ensures secure data storage and transmission, along with access to marketing modules and internal analytics tools. Additionally, BigCommerce features a well-designed mobile version, optimizing the experience across devices.

• Squarespace

Squarespace is a SaaS platform that allows you to quickly build an e-commerce system. It offers a variety of pre-built templates tailored to different industries. However, unlike the previous SaaS solutions, you may need assistance from a specialized expert to fully leverage the platform, as its setup can be quite complex. While Squarespace provides powerful features for building online stores, its rigid internal business logic may pose challenges when trying to adapt the platform to fit the unique needs of your business.

• OpenCart

OpenCart is a popular SaaS platform for building custom e-commerce systems, featuring a developer-friendly interface. This powerful PHP-based system allows you to manage multiple stores under a single owner, with separate optimization and management options for each store. OpenCart is an ideal solution for small and medium-sized businesses, offering simplicity, flexibility, and a wide range of built-in integrations for marketing and SEO optimization. A key advantage of this platform is the active developer community, providing valuable support and resources.

Open-Source E-Commerce Frameworks

Open-source software gives developers access to the source code of their system, allowing them to modify and tailor it to meet specific requirements. Working with such frameworks requires developers who not only build the e-commerce websites but also ensure its ongoing functionality: updates, system maintenance, security, scalability, and more.

The key advantage of using an open-source framework over SaaS solutions is the unlimited customization potential it offers for tailoring your e-commerce system to fit your business needs. This flexibility is especially crucial for medium and large businesses, where established business processes and workflows may not align with the constraints of SaaS platforms. This factor significantly impacts the efficiency of both the e-commerce system and the business as a whole.

Additionally, it's worth noting that there are active developer communities worldwide dedicated to these frameworks, ensuring you have access to expert support when developing and maintaining your system.

The drawbacks of using this approach to build e-commerce systems include the following:

• The store owner is responsible for timely software updates.

• The more complex the system, the more frequently you'll need to consult with developers.

• The e-commerce system owner is fully responsible for ensuring the security of user data storage.

• The cost of implementation and the time to launch increase significantly when using open-source frameworks.

Let's look at examples of the most popular open-source frameworks for developing e-commerce websites in 2024.

• Angular

Angular is a frontend JavaScript framework for e-commerce developed by Google. Its built-in tools, such as Angular Elements and AngularFire, save development time by providing many ready-made solutions. The framework offers a wealth of useful resources, active community support, and SEO optimization capabilities. Angular also comes with a library of pre-built templates that can be used for a rapid launch of your online store.

• Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a full-featured framework for building e-commerce systems. One of its key advantages is its compatibility with a wide range of free web servers and databases. Ruby on Rails includes ready-made solutions, modules, and plugins for quickly creating online stores. Notably, it offers built-in protection against SQL, XSS, and CSRF attacks, reducing the security management overhead for your e-commerce system.

• React.js

React.js is one of the top frameworks for e-commerce. This JavaScript framework is used to create user interfaces, components, and modular code snippets. Due to the modular nature of the development, components can be reused multiple times, saving considerable development time. The use of a virtual DOM (Document Object Model) increases the overall framework speed, and consequently, the performance of your online store.

• Laravel

Laravel is a PHP framework for building e-commerce systems, based on object-oriented programming (OOP) principles and following the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. This framework simplifies troubleshooting with autonomous objects and a flexible internal structure. Laravel also comes with built-in protection against SQL and XSS attacks. Laravel supports a wide range of integrations with payment systems, analytics tools, and messaging services for end customers.

• Django

Django is a Python-based e-commerce framework with a rich set of built-in features for implementing online stores. It uses a component-based architecture, which makes scaling the system easier. The Django ecosystem offers an extensive library of pre-built code snippets for basic operations and e-commerce components, speeding up the development process and allowing faster delivery of your e-commerce solution.

When choosing an open-source framework for building an online store, the decision is typically based on the following key factors:

• Global expertise: Open-source frameworks incorporate the experience of developers from around the world, giving you access to the most optimal and trend-setting solutions in e-commerce, along with continuous support from a professional community of developers.

• Maximum flexibility: The ability to tailor the system to meet all the specific requirements of your business, ensuring it works exactly as you need.

• Transparency and security: With open-source systems, you have access to all parts of the system, allowing you to configure and strengthen security on the elements that matter most to your business.

• Independence: You won’t be tied to a SaaS provider, giving you greater freedom and control over your e-commerce website.

• Scalability: The ability to scale your system in line with your current needs and the evolving market structure in which you operate.

• Innovation: Open-source frameworks allow you to quickly implement new innovations, helping you stay ahead of market trends or introduce your own solutions to make your e-commerce website more competitive.

When selecting a framework or tool for building your e-commerce website, it's essential to consider the structure and needs of your business. Even at the initial stage, don't forget to think about future growth. After all, scaling challenges can catch you off guard faster than you think.

Whether you choose a SaaS solution or an open-source framework, it’s always beneficial to consult with a professional development team. They can help you select the current optimal solution and provide insight into the scalability prospects of your e-commerce website.

Today, professional development teams, including us at ScrumLaunch, work with both: open-source frameworks and SaaS solutions. This approach helps clients not only speed up the deployment of their online stores but also ensures that the system operates efficiently and provides a seamless experience for the end customer.