There are a lot of free content management systems (CMSes) out there in 2024. Some are great for projects with a small workload, while others are better for large stores with rapidly rising traffic. Which one is best for your online store, and what do you need to launch it quickly with minimal investment? Read on to find out.
We’ll go over 4 free CMSes for an online store:
- WordPress
- Joomla
- Drupal
- PrestaShop
All the CMSes on our list have the following:
An interface and features that are easy to use — most CMSes do not require in-depth programming knowledge so even a beginner can catch on. Each CMS offers easy access to documentation and customization guides.
Customization through plugins. For each CMS, add-ons can be installed on top of the main application to expand its capabilities. With them, you can, for example, connect to the site courier delivery service or messengers for communicating with your customers.
Open source code — you can customize the CMS at will to meet your project objectives.
CMS popularity statistics are cited from Solorlib.com
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world
There are 470 million websites out there running on WordPress — that's 43% of all the websites in the world. This CMS boasts a huge community. Another feature of WordPress is the variety of plugins that extend this simple CMS into a feature-rich system. At the same time, your admin area will remain uncluttered and user-friendly.
That's why WordPress is great for online store tasks:
- You can design a website quickly — WordPress offers thousands of ready-made templates and themes.
- Lots of plugins — thanks to the large selection, you can quickly add a payment system, delivery service, and any other service you need.
- SEO optimization — WordPress offers tools for promoting your site in search engines.
Here are a few of the things that WordPress plugins for online stores allow you to do:
Start an online store with WooCommerce. You can use it to add storefronts, a shopping cart, payment tools and modules, a delivery system, and fulfillment to your site. The plugin is free but you have to pay for some features.
Sell digital products like ebooks, music, and software with Easy Digital Downloads. Includes the standard tools for sales: showcases, shopping carts, and accepting payments. Plus it has an access control system for files, the ability to send emails with a link to download the product after purchase, and promo codes for discounts. You can sell your own digital goods or set up reselling of those from your partners. The plugin starts at $99.
Raise your rankings in search engines with Yoast SEO. Supports various SEO tools: URL management, sitemaps, customizing breadcrumbs and meta tags, and improved site loading. The developers claim that the plugin will help you optimize your site as fast as possible. The plugin is free but you can buy tech support.
Advertise your products with Mailchimp for WooCommerce. A plugin for integration with Mailchimp, the leading mailing list service. Helps you create and manage marketing campaigns, synchronize customer data, and send targeted mailings. Useful to retain customers and increase sales. The plugin is free.
Analyze your website traffic and control your revenue with Site Kit by Google. This plugin is for integrating with Google services: Google Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, and PageSpeed Insights. Allows you to easily track and analyze data about site performance, traffic, and revenue, and provides convenient reports right in your WordPress dashboard. The plugin is free.
For whom WordPress is best:
- Projects with a limited budget — to launch an online store quickly and with minimal costs.
- Startups — in WordPress, you don't have to spend time on development. There are a lot of guides and documentation openly available.
- Medium and large online stores — WordPress can be supplemented with plugins for different tasks to expand the functionality of the site.
Joomla — a functional CMS that isn’t demanding on hosting
The concept of Joomla is to give the user all the functionality needed in one system. Joomla hides a lot of customization without the need for additional plugins. However, Joomla’s site control panel is more complex than that of WordPress.
For example, Joomla allows you to customize the appearance of your site as needed — you don’t have to get deep into front-end development to create an interesting project.
Joomla is the fifth most popular option in the world: in 2024, about 18 million sites run on it.
Here's why Joomla is a good choice for an online store:
It’s functional — many of its features work “out of the box.” For example, SEO optimization, media and content management, and user groups. You won't have to add dozens of additional modules to Joomla.
Minimum technical requirements for hosting — enough support for SQL and PHP. A minimum of 1 CPU and 1 GB RAM on the server.
Easy to master — there is a huge pool of documentation, localization in different languages, forums, and video guides.
We suggest using the following helpful plugins for Joomla with an online store:
For creating your online store
- Free — VirtueMart. You can set up different prices for buyers, upload product cards with different properties, and save a buyers' cart after they close the site. This extension is free.
- Paid alternative — EShop. Allows you to create multi-level product catalogs, set different characteristics, and create reviews, ratings, and product comparisons. It costs €49.90.
Speed up page loading — JCH Optimize. It removes unnecessary characters from your code, speeds up image loading, and compresses texts. With JCH Optimize, pages load faster, which improves search engine rankings. There is a free version but paid versions start at $29.
Who Joomla is best for:
- Small and medium-sized online stores that do not want to spend time selecting and installing plugins for their CMS. Joomla offers a large range of options in its basic configuration.
- When you need to develop a customized site design without templates.
- Online stores that are renting affordable hosting with minimal specs — Joomla will not overload the server.
Drupal is a scalable and secure CMS
Drupal is a CMS for creating heavy-duty sites where scalability is important. It’s great for advanced users as the interface and settings of Drupal are more complex than those of Joomla or WordPress. On Drupal, you can create any kind of site, from a single page to large online stores.
Why Drupal is great for an online store:
Security — Drupal’s developers pay a lot of attention to security. They conduct security audits, find and fix vulnerabilities quickly, and protect from hacker attacks. This is a major plus as online stores contain commercial information and personal data.
Scalability — Your project can expand to include new pages and complex features. Drupal makes this easy: it has tools for accelerated page loading and the ability to integrate the CRM with other systems that will help simplify your work amidst high traffic.
It's large community — you can always find documentation and tips on how to use Drupal. You can also take advantage of plugins written by other developers.
Free, helpful Drupal plugins for an online store:
For setting up the basic functionality of an online store
Commerce. This one is for unloading goods, receiving orders, and payments. The system consists of the main Commerce module and its extensions. For example, the Commerce UI for displaying the store UI, Checkout for ordering goods, Cart — a shopping cart, and Customer for working with customers.
Ubercart if Commerce doesn’t do what you need. The developers claim that Ubercart streamlines orders for both the buyers and site administrators.
Customize the output of data from Drupal to the interface with Views. It comes in handy when creating attractive showcases, menus, or shopping carts. For example, with it, you can display a block with popular products or highlight a category in the menu.
Analyze your site’s SEO with Content Optimizer. Analyzes the content and gives recommendations on how to optimize your site for search engines.
Who will get the most out of Drupal:
- Medium and large online stores, for which traffic is growing rapidly and a flexible and scalable CMS is needed.
- Projects where it is important to pay close attention to data security — for example, online stores selling premium goods or financial services.
- Online stores that want to develop a non-standard site and customize it to meet their project objectives.
- Projects that don’t mind hiring a development specialist — Drupal is not suitable for beginners.
PrestaShop — a simple CMS specifically for e-commerce
PrestaShop is a CMS designed for online stores. It includes more than 350 features to quickly create a complete website. This is the 12th most popular CMS in the world. About 300,000 online stores use it.
Advantages of PrestaShop for an online store:
Good localization — it supports over 70 languages and aims at a global market.
Rich functionality out of the box — It is customized for e-commerce. You can create a storefront and customize order processing and promotion without installing modules and other enhancements.
Customization without coding — PrestaShop supports hundreds of modules that will help you quickly add new features to the site at minimal cost. Many modules are paid, but there are free plans.
The bestselling modules for PrestaShop:
Connect messengers to communicate with customers through popular services like WhatsApp and Facebook with the WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger & Chat Button. Helps you to communicate with your customers in a way convenient for them. The module has a free plan.
Make your website menu more attractive with Mega Menu PRO. This module allows you to create menus in different styles and add animations. You can choose ready-made templates and any colors. If that isn’t enough, you can set your own CSS styles. The module costs €97.99 per installation.
Perform SEO analytics using AI with SEO Audit. It analyzes how optimized your site is for search engines and users, shows previews of how your site will appear in the search engine, and warns of SEO problems. It can integrate with ChatGPT and create product descriptions and meta tags faster. The module costs €167.99.
Start email newsletters via Mailchimp with Mailchimp for PrestaShop. It helps to customize marketing emails like ads, notifications, and technical messages. The module is free of charge.
Speed up page loading with Super Speed. It caches pages, optimizes databases, and minimizes code. The module costs €139.99 per installation.
Who PrestaShop is best for:
- Small and medium-sized online stores — if you have no plans to expand and scale your project.
- Projects that can’t hire a development specialist — PrestaShop has a clear interface that even a beginner can understand.
Other things you need to run an online store
In addition to a CMS, your online store will need:
- A domain name — the address that users will see when they open a link to your site. These cost from a few cents to millions of dollars. For example, the domain bananana.com will cost $20 and supershop.net will cost $1.8 million.
- Hosting — space on a server owned by a hosting provider where your website and its content are kept. This is necessary so that users can find the site on the internet. You can choose hosting with the ispmanager panel already installed or install it yourself with the help of our guide.
- The ispmanager control panel for managing your site. In ispmanager, you can install a CMS, make backups, protect your site and server from viruses, and manage the server without using complex commands in the console.
Now let's move on to installing a CMS.
How to install a CMS for a website from the ispmanager control panel
You can install WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, or PrestaShop in a few minutes from the ispmanager panel.
- In the left side menu, go to Sites → Create Site.
- Fill in the fields with your settings and choose a CMS from the list.
In the CMS drop-down list, you will also find phpBB for creating forums and the fee-based Bitrix — we will take a look at them in the articles to come
3.Click the “Create” button. In the lower right corner, a login and password pop-up will appear for you to log in to your admin and databases. Save these credentials.
The login name and password can be viewed in the “Notifications” tab — click the bell in the upper-right corner of the panel
4.Log in to site administration.
To log in to your CMS, enter the appropriate path in your browser address bar.
Here are the paths for different CMS:
For WordPress: address_site/wp-admin or address_site/wp-login.php. For example: https://ispmanager-shop.com/wp-admin or https://ispmanager-shop.com/wp-login.php
Joomla: address_site/administrator/
Drupal: address_site/admin
PrestaShop: address_site/admin
5.Enter your login name and password to log in on the CMS page that opens. You’re done — you can customize the site and add content.
This article was originally published on the ispmanager blog
Top comments (4)
There are cases where online stores with 32M products were made on Joomla. Or sites with news and attendance of 1M unique visitors per day. In good hands, Joomla can do more than small websites and stores.
You are right, but in the article we gave possible examples of projects
They are all possible ))
Great breakdown of free CMS options for online stores in 2024! As a Cloudways user, I’d like to add that pairing these CMS platforms, especially WordPress, with managed cloud hosting can significantly enhance performance, scalability, and security—essential for any growing online store. The great thing about Cloudways is that you can host all PHP-based CMS platforms seamlessly, making it a versatile choice for diverse projects. Thanks for the insights!