Welcome to Zen Cart® ...

The Zen Cart® software is made available to you for use, additions, changes, modifications, etc. without charge, under the GNU General Public License.

While we do not charge for this software, donations are greatly appreciated each time you download a new version, to help cover the expenses of maintenance, upgrades, updates, the free support forum and the continued development of this software for your online e-commerce store.

Donations can be made at: The Zen Cart® Team Page

We appreciate your support.
The Zen Cart® Team

Zen Cart® is derived from: Copyright 2003 osCommerce
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
and is redistributable under the GNU General Public License


O S I Certified
This software is OSI Certified Open Source Software.
OSI Certified is a certification mark of the Open Source Initiative.


What Is Zen Cart®?

What & History

Designed for Online Merchants

Zen Cart® truly is the art of e-commerce; a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. The software is being developed by group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce could be and should be done differently. Some "solutions" seem to be complicated programming exercises instead of responding to users' needs, Zen Cart® puts the merchant's and shopper's requirements first. Similarly, other programs are nearly impossible to install and use without an IT degree, Zen Cart® can be installed and set-up by anyone with the most basic computer skills. Others are so expensive ... not Zen Cart®, it's FREE!

Designed for Online Shoppers

Zen Cart® delivers the ultimate online shopping experience to your customers. Navigating through your merchandise offerings is a breeze with Zen Cart®, the program allows you to draw attention to products such as "featured" and "specials" etc in addition to the traditional category/product navigation. Once a product is added to the shopping cart, secure checkout is a simple 3-step process including collecting address information, shipping selection (multiple shipping methods including real-time internet shipping quotes are built-in), payment selection (PayPal™ and AuthorizeNet™ are just 2 of the various included modules) and confirming the final order including taxes and discounts/coupons/sales/gift-certificates applied. You are immediately notified of the order and your customer automatically receives an e-mail confirmation.

Zen Cart®'s goals include:

In short, Zen Cart® is shopping cart software the way it should have been all along.

We simply want to deliver a fast and easy to use shopping cart program that's freely available to everyone under the GPL. Zen Cart's® development team encourages feedback and contributions from the community and we invite open discussion about e-commerce solutions.

For Web Designers

Zen Cart® gives web designers a robust and customizable electronic storefront that's easy to keep up-to-date with new features. It provides usable, intuitive and unobtrusive purchase flows right out of the box based on proven industry best-practices.

One of the secrets behind its power lies in our robust template system that "abstracts" the look-and-feel from the code and logic behind the scenes. This enables you to give clients a truly custom solution that integrates quickly and perfectly with their existing website design.

For Developers and Hosting Providers

Developers are able to deploy cutting edge solutions based on Zen Cart®'s modern standards and technologies. Combining PHP server-side technology with the ability to choose from multiple databases on the back end, Zen Cart® is flexible software that you can customize and modify to suit your needs.

Zen Cart® Server Requirements:

Minimum Server Requirements:

RECOMMENDED server capabilities:

While Zen Cart® can run on Windows/IIS servers, Linux/Apache servers are recommended for best results.

Features List

Support Resources

Our Free Support Forum, along with our FAQ's and other information to get your shop online quickly can be found on the Zen Cart® Website


Welcome! We're sure you'll enjoy the Zen Cart® Experience!

Copyright 2003 - 2011 Zen Ventures, LLC — Zen Cart® www.zen-cart.com