Shopware
Shopware is a modular online shop system developed in Germany from 2004 onwards. It is available both as Open Source software and in commercial editions.
It is produced and maintained by Shopware AG, a German multinational e-commerce software company headquartered in Schöppingen , North Rhine-Westphalia. Shopware’s products are open source service orientated platforms based on PHP (Symfony framework). The Shopware platform offers online retailers a suite of services including catalogue & content management, promotion, shopping cart, payment handling, marketing, order management and shipping tools.
The company reported that it had more than 38,000 businesses using its platforms as of March 2022. According to BuiltWith, 38,351 currently live websites run on the Shopware platform as of Aug 2022[1].
History
Shopware was founded in 2000 (initially under the name Hamann-Media GmbH ) by Stefan Hamann - a young a computer programmer and he was later joined by his brother Sebastian Hamann.
- In 2010 Shopware released an Open Source version of their shopping cart platform - and all subsequent releases have included a free to use Open Source version.
- In 2015 Shopware released their Shopware 5 platform.
- In 2020 Shopware 6 was released. This platform represents the culmination of development and standardisation that delivers API first, composable and cloud ready facilities based solely on the Symfony PHP framework.[2]
- In 2020 (and in all subsequent years) Shopware was recognised by Gartner as part of it’s Magic Quadrant.[3]
- In February 2022 Shopware closed its first funding round with a $100m investment from Carlyle Group & PayPal.[4]
Shopware was originally an unashamedly German platform, well known for providing market leading ecommerce software to small and medium sized retail businesses in the DACH region, but since 2018 it has been steadily increasing its international adoption. To aid this it has made a number of strategic hires to improve its international offering. These include industry heavyweights like Ben Marks[5] and Kathleen Claes [6] from Magento / Adobe. The new team, as well as strategic partnerships with businesses such as Webscale[7] have helped Shopware position themselves for growth in new markets, like the US.
Editions
Community Edition
The Community Edition was launched at the end of 2010 and is free, open source online shop software offered on the same technical core as the paid editions. While the source code was disclosed in 2010, the software was placed under the AGPL3 license with the release of version 4 (Shopware 4) on August 28, 2012 . Templates are subject to the Apache 2.0 License .
The latest version of the platform, Shopware 6, is offered under the MIT open source license.
The manufacturer offers no warranty, support or maintenance for the free software, but a wiki and a forum are available. The Community Edition is not restricted in terms of functionality and can manage any number of categories, articles (items) and customers. An upgrade to the paid editions is possible. The Community Edition can be expanded with free and paid plugins from the Shopware Community Store.
The Professional Edition is a commercial license. In addition to the basic functionalities of the Community Edition, it contains additional features such as storytelling and digital publishing. In addition, customers with this edition are entitled to a warranty and have the option of making use of manufacturer support and maintenance.
The Shopware Enterprise Edition essentially has the same range of functions as the Professional Edition with the addition of advanced publishing, B2B functions and Enterprise search. In addition, users of this license are offered added value in the form of developer support around the clock, and personal consultancy advice.
Extensions
There are around 3,500 plug-ins for Shopware, e.g. in the areas of administration, integration, language, marketing, template and design. There are also interfaces to around 50 payment service providers and various merchandise management systems. It is also possible to create your own extensions either as Apps or Plugins.
Shopware allows the creation of invoices and delivery notes; However, functions such as purchasing or financial accounting are not integrated. Interfaces to various merchandise management systems are offered.
The "bepado" extension enabled shop operators to make products from their range available for sale to other shop operators via a decentralized marketplace. The marketplace offered a B2B platform for wholesalers and online retailers in the style of a social network, in which a targeted product search is possible and product data and descriptions can be automatically transferred. At Shopware Community Day 2015, the extension was renamed Shopware Connect . The service was discontinued on October 31, 2018 after new shop operators had not been able to add their shop to the network for some time.
Technology
Shopware is developed in the programming language PHP. Up to version 4 the 'enlight' framework, a manufacturer-specific modification of the Zend Framework, was used. Since version 5, Shopware has been based on the Symfony PHP framework.[8]
A relational MySQL database is required as the database.
Like the template design, the software follows the Model View Controller design pattern . The basic structure for the templates is 960.gs, a standardized design grid for web layouts. Smarty is used as a framework for the templates, jQuery and Ext JS for the development of JavaScript components .
A Git repository is used for version management, which is also available on GitHub . Bug reports can be reported via Jira.
A software development kit for the programming language PHP exists for the development of programming interface -based services , which is also available on Github.
Version History
Version 1
Released in 2004.
Version 3.0
Release date November 10, 2008
With version 3.0.3, the RMA and service functions were bundled in the "Ticket system/CRM" module. A premium module that was already abolished in version 3.5 was also set up, the functions of which were only available to users of a maintenance contract .
Version 3.5
Release date October 19, 2010
New features of version 3.5 were in particular a completely revised template and the provision of an open-source Community Edition. Within 5 months there were 3,500 new installations of the software.
A multi-level caching concept was used and a plugin system with integrated hooks and events . This allowed developers to develop new functions using additional modules (plugins) without having to intervene in the core of the program. From version 3.5.4 the hookpoints were omitted.
Version 4.0
Release date August 28, 2012
With version 4.0, released on August 28, 2012, the software was placed under an AGPL license and is therefore also officially open source . Major changes include:
- The previous modules will be available as plugins in the future.
- The modules for configuring variants and exporting data to price search engines have been integrated into the software.
- The search function has been upgraded and an HTML newsletter has been integrated.
- A media manager manages images, films and other media centrally and via drag & drop.
- A rest API provides functions for connecting external software.
- Important elements such as the call-to-action buttons, navigation, search and input fields, for example in the checkout process, have been optimized for tablet PCs. Finger gestures are also supported.
- The performance of the Community and Professional Edition has been increased by using a new cache layer.[9]
Version 5.0
Version 5.0.0 final was released on April 27, 2015. The version included a revised front end designed to be fully responsive.
Version 6
Release date January 15, 2020
Shopware AG previewed Shopware 6 as part of the Shopware Community Day (SCD) in the Landscape Park Duisburg Nord.[2] The software package had been in development since 2016, and incorporates standard technologies such as Symfony and Vue.js and, according to Shopware, offers programming interfaces for a modern e-commerce platform and contains a standard storefront based on Bootstrap and the Twig template engine.
The first version for productive use (with Shopware 6.1) was released on January 15, 2020.
At Community Day 2020, Shopware released the cloud-based (SaaS) Shopware Starter Edition,[10]which aims to make Shopware 6 more accessible to small businesses. The Shopware Professional Edition was also presented as a cloud model.[11]
In Q2 2021 a suite of functionality aimed at B2B retailers (which had previously be well utilised on Shopware 5) was released for Shopware 6
At Community Day 2022, Shopware released a PaaS version of the platform, delivered in partnership with hosting platform provider Platform.sh
Community
Shopware, through both it's commercial adoption by eCommerce agencies and merchants, its technology partnerships and through its support of Open Source, has managed to build a vibrant community around the platform. This includes an independent community organisation, Shopware United, who have organised community events in the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and US, and support of numerous other Open Source technology initiatives such as the Web Engineering Unconference[12] and the Reacticon Conference.
Reviews and Awards
Shopware has been recognised as a great place to work since 2017[13]
Shopware has been listed as a 'Niche Player' in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce since 2020
Shopware is also listed as part of Gartner's Peer review service and (as at Sept 2022) had a 4.4 star rating[14]
Shopware is listed and reviewed on the G2 Crowd peer-to-peer review site[15]
E Commerce Germany lists Shopware as one of its Top 5 Open Source ecommerce platforms[16]
Ecommerce Guide gave the Shopware 6 platform a review score of 8.75 out of 10[17]
References
- ↑ "Shopware Usage Statistics". trends.builtwith.com. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "t3n – digital pioneers | Das Magazin für digitales Business". t3n.de (in Deutsch). Retrieved 2022-08-19.
- ↑ uma (2022-08-23). "Shopware recognized in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ report for the third year in a row - BRANDS journal". Retrieved 2022-09-08.
- ↑ "Shopware, an e-commerce platform that powers 100K brands, raises its first outside funding: $100M from PayPal and Carlyle". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
- ↑ Writers, Staff (2021-03-09). "Former Magento Chief Evangelist Ben Marks joins Shopware as Director - Retail Gazette". www.retailgazette.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ "Shopware eyes further international growth with two critical new hires from Magento | Retail Technology Review". www.retailtechnologyreview.com. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ Desk, AIT News (2021-09-17). "Webscale Powers Shopware's Enterprise Cloud Delivery Into North America". AiThority. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ "Shopware (Projects using Symfony)". symfony.com. Retrieved 2022-08-19.
- ↑ "Shopware 4: Neue Software für Webshop-Betreiber". www.channelpartner.de (in Deutsch). Retrieved 2022-08-19.
- ↑ Sponsored (2020-06-22). "Shopware 6 now available as a cloud solution - Retail Gazette". www.retailgazette.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-10-05.
- ↑ "t3n – digital pioneers | Das Magazin für digitales Business". t3n.de (in Deutsch). Retrieved 2022-08-19.
- ↑ Open Source Shopware Sponsor - Web Engineering Unconference EU (weuceu), retrieved 2022-10-05
- ↑ "shopware AG Great Place to Work®". www.greatplacetowork.de (in Deutsch). Retrieved 2022-09-08.
- ↑ Inc, Gartner. "Shopware Enterprise IT Software Reviews | Gartner Peer Insights". Gartner. Retrieved 2022-09-08.
- ↑ "G2 Crowd Peer-to-Peer review". Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "TOP 6 open source ecommerce platforms". E-commerce Germany News. 2017-01-17. Retrieved 2022-09-12.
- ↑ "The Best Ecommerce Platforms [2022] - Enterprise & SME Ecommerce Platforms". ecommerceguide.com. 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2022-09-12.
External Links
Shopware - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Source code on GitHub - Shopware 5
Source code on GitHub - Shopware 6
Open Source 'Community Edition' Landing Page
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