It's the eCommerce era and nopCommerce is one of the best eCommerce software available in the market. The more I use it, the more I love it. This series of articles is not an advert or promotion. It's rather my thoughts on why I feel this software is awesome and how is it going to be a clear winner in the long run. I'll tell my experiences from three different perspectives in this series, as how I feel about it as developer, as a store owner and as a technology company.
Why nopCommerce is a long runner - For Developers
1. Strong Core Team
The nice thing about team work is that you always have others on your side
The core team of nopCommerce, headed by Andrei Mazulnitsyn, the Founder of nopCommerce, is simply a mix of geeks. They know what they want and what their users want. They want to make sure that nopCommerce has every single feature that an enterprise level software should have and for that they are not afraid of experimenting with things to implement a feature or fixing a bug. It's their team of this expertise that they had to release just one big security fix in these many years since launch.
2. Robust Architecture
If you think architecture is not important, try a bad architecture and you'll change your mind
The architecture of nopCommerce is second best to none. It's so neatly organized that it can be used as a base project for any web application project for ASP.NET MVC.
3. Best Development Practices
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
If you are developer, you'd know the pain of working on somebody else's code. But the code of nopCommerce would not cause you that agony. It's very well commented wherever required while most of the code is self documented. Besides, they make use of concepts such as IoC and Separation of Concerns so very well.
4. Clean Documentation
Lack of documentation is becoming a problem for acceptance
Previously it was paid, but as the solution matured, nopCommerce team decided to make the documentation available for public for FREE. And it's improving with every release. So if you are a beginner, you'll find it very helpful and intuitive to start with. When I started working with nopCommerce, it just took me 3 days to create my first nopcommerce plugin.
5. Continuous Issue Tracking and Bug Fixing
If you find a bug, report it. Bugs don't like to be forgotten
nopCommerce team is very serious with tracking issues. Andrei and his core team regularly create and update issues. They also keep looking for any other issues that other developers have created and prioritize them. The feature and issue tracking is totally transparent. It's this level of transparency that has caused nopCommerce to build a strong community in this small time.
6. Pluggable and Fully Customizable
If you can't plug in to a system, the system might not be for you
The plugin system of nopCommerce is so very well written that almost everything can be customized and extended by writing plugins. And in case you wish to have a greater level of customization, it's also easier with nopCommerce. You can customize menus, size-charts, emails, themes etc. using plugins. The system is so flexible that you can have an entire social network on our eCommerce website.
7. Always up-to-date with Latest Technologies
Everything but wine should be latest
nopCommerce team strives to use latest technologies and they always want to be ahead with the latest version of stack. The team is so obsessed with new wine ;) that with every release, all the third party libraries are updated to their latest available versions.
8. Microsoft Azure Support
If you have a great idea that can translate everywhere, then that's where scalability comes in - and that's where you actually start to make real money
This is my favorite. Cloud is everywhere and so does it become an essential part of nopCommerce. They provide support for Azure out of box. That means, you as a developer don't have to worry about scalability and performance issues as all this is taken care automatically at the core.
9. Vast Community
Small acts when multiplied by millions of people can transform the world
The community is the backbone for the popularity of nopCommerce. You can always find people in conversation on it's forum. So if you are stuck at some problem, be it related to plugin or some customization or just as little as changing the color of a text, the community will always be quick in help. The community is so powerful that many of the features in the software have been merged pull requests from developers across globe.
10. MVP Program
Finding the right developer for your systems is as important as having the right captain for your ship.
nopCommerce has it's own MVP program that the team uses to identify individuals and developers who have extensive nopCommerce knowledge. The identification as nopCommerce MVP is good for any developer who wants to show his expertise. This was my experience of using nopCommerce as a developer so far. In the next article of series, I'll share my experiences as an store owner. If you think I missed a few things, do let me know in comments.
