Solidus and Spree are two of the most popular open-source e-commerce platforms. Both offer many features and flexibility, but they have some essential differences that may make one better suited to your needs than the other.
In this article, we'll look at the similarities and differences between Solidus and Spree so that you can decide which one is right for you.
What is Spree?
Spree is an open-source e-commerce platform that has been built on Ruby on Rails and can be modified to fit your needs. It offers many features, including simple installation, easy customization, and flexible pricing options.
Spree Commerce Development allows you to customize your site's appearance using CSS, with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface option for creating new products or editing existing ones. You can also add additional functionality by installing extensions from the Spree marketplace, including a wide selection of third-party add-ons such as payment gateways and shipping carriers. Spree offers many features, including An admin dashboard that allows users to manage all aspects of their store, including product information and inventory management. A shopping cart will enable customers to purchase products from their online store. Support for multiple languages and currencies
Spree is a Ruby-on-Rails shopping cart that you can use to sell products on the internet. It's an open-source project, meaning it's free, and you can modify it as much as you want. If you don't have any experience with eCommerce platforms or even Ruby on Rails, it might initially seem a little intimidating. But once you get the hang of Spree's basic concepts, it should be easy to understand how everything works together.
Spree has a ton of features that make it great for selling online:
- Easy integration with many payment gateways (including Stripe and PayPal)
- Automatic tax calculations based on your location and the customer's location
- Support for multiple languages (English and Japanese at the moment)
- A customizable checkout process that lets customers choose their preferred method of payment and shipping
Spree is a popular online shopping service that makes it easy for users to browse and purchase items from their favorite brands. Spree was launched in 2012, and the company has continued to grow.
Pros of Spree:
- Spree is free to use, so users don't have to pay fees when they sign up.
- Spree offers products from more than 25 different brands, so there's a good chance you'll find what you're looking for!
- The site uses video content from influencers on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram, which means you get to see what the product looks like in action before deciding whether or not you want to buy it. This can be very helpful when trying to choose between two similar options!
- You can also use Spree's "Find Similar" feature if there's something specific about an item that you want but don't see anywhere else on their website (like maybe it has two different colors available). This will help you find other similar items instead of just leaving empty-handed!
Cons of Spree
Spree is a web-based e-commerce platform that allows users to create various storefronts for their businesses. There are several reasons why it is not as good as other platforms.
The first reason is that it does not allow you to use your domain name, which means you will have to use their domain name instead. This means that your customers will have to remember their website address instead of your address, which may make them more likely to forget about your store in the future.
Another reason Spree may not be suitable for you is that it does not have as many features as other platforms. For example, it does not allow users to customize the look of their store (which can be vital if you want your store to stand out). It also does not offer any support options or 24/7 customer service like other e-commerce platforms do, which may make it difficult for you if something goes wrong with your site or if there is an issue with one of your products.
What is Solidus?
Solidus is a Rails e-commerce website that enables you to create your online store from scratch.
When you're ready to start, you can choose from one of five templates that have been built for different purposes, but all of them are responsive and capable of being customized to fit your needs.
When you're ready to start building your store, Solidus offers three starting points:
- A blank template where you can build everything from scratch using the included tools and CSS stylesheets;
- A theme that enables you to pick the colors, fonts, and layout of your site without having to worry about building it yourself; or
- A starter kit that includes sample products, categories, and tags so that you don't need to waste time creating these things yourself before getting down to business
Pros of Solidus:
- Easy to use: Solidus is designed to be easy to use and understand, so if you're new to building websites or don't have much technical knowledge, this product will be perfect for you.
- Lots of features: Solidus has many features that help make your website more functional, like a built-in search engine and the ability to add products from Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.
- Easy setup: Once you've purchased Solidus through their website (which costs $30), all you need to do is follow their instructions for setting up your store on Shopify—which is also free!
Cons of Solidus
Solidus is a great e-commerce platform that offers many features and functionality. However, it does have some limitations. The biggest drawback is that Solidus does not support the creation of a store for multiple users, which means that you will need to set up separate stores for each user if you want to give them access to manage their listings.
Another disadvantage is that Solidus does not have an easy way to import existing data from another platform into its database. This means that if you already have existing customer information or product data, you will need to manually enter everything into Solidus' database (which can be very tedious).
Spree vs. Solidus Comparing Two Top Ruby on Rails eCommerce Platforms
When deciding on a new product, you want to be sure that you're making the best one. We've put together this guide to help you learn about and understand Solidus vs. spree key differences. Before we get started, let's take a look at what each of these products is.
Solidus is a payment gateway for e-commerce websites. It allows customers to pay for goods with cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies through the use of plug-ins and built-in languages like PHP and Python.
Spree Key is an integrated e-commerce system that includes features like payments and shipping management, order fulfillment management, inventory management, and more.
Now let's take a closer look at how these products stack up against each other:
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Solidus |
Spree |
Verdict |
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Learning and support |
Its team has a Slack channel where you can find a solution to your problems. Most of the questions I posed were answered, which means that the support is quite good.
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Using Spree, you get most of the support from its website, with documentation covering every type of issue you may encounter.
As mentioned above, Spree's support and lingering issues have been developers' problems. |
Solidus |
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Ruby on Rails |
This allows for ease of build for Solidus developers, who are left with fewer decisions to make when writing code while never having to sacrifice quality or flexibility.
Ruby on Rails is an overall framework already used in applications all over the web, including some of the world's biggest eCommerce sites. |
Spree shares the same framework as Solidus
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Draw |
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Licensing |
As for Solidus, the only license it requires on its GitHub is the one of Spree so you can use both platforms for free with no limits.
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Spree’s BSD license has lenient rules on its licenses out there. No matter what the scale or turnover of your business is, Spree always uses the same open-source software. This means there exists no 'enterprise edition,' so Even if your company is classified as an SME or a large multinational corporation, you are eligible to use Spree for commercial purposes without having to pay a license fee.
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Draw |
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Design |
Both Spree and Solidus offer several themes to choose from when designing your storefront. Each one can be adjusted depending on the style of your business needs.
You could also create an entirely custom-made designed website that contains endless extensions and modifications that can be implemented without any complication. |
While it is easier to find Spree themes, you can use them with your Solidus project, so there's no difference here.
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Draw |
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Extension |
Solidus offers fewer extensions than Spree, but you get higher quality and fewer issues. As per the market needs, a company’s software engineers will choose fewer ready-to-use components than an extensive library that contains errors. Using Solidus extension, you will have more control over the codes and less time required for fixing any error that might arise. |
Website owners possess the power to have additional or slightly altered features than provided before by the default settings. Many third parties have already designed such extensions for Spree, all of which can be modified from the source code into a design suitable for your business. Any additional extensions can be developed very quickly using Spree’s sturdy application programming interface (API). |
Solidus |
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Scalability |
Solidus obtains its scalability from its previous versions. However, cleaner source code and active maintenance by the community make it a safer choice for the future growth of your business.
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Spree is designed with scalability in mind, meaning your traffic grows and grows – which it will – your store can quickly grow with it. Since Spree is open source, as the popularity of your online store increases, the Spree platform allows scaling with minimal effort and cuts out additional hardware and development costs. |
Solidus |
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Analytics |
While you don't get an analytics plug-in on the solidus.io website (there are some basic reporting extensions), having complete control of the code makes it much easier to perform a Ruby on Rails analytics solution or connect any other solution with an API.
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Several third-party extensions exist as it does not support in-built extensions that have been built, which can be integrated very simply and quickly into the backend of your online store website. |
Draw |
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Adaptability |
Solidus has better adaptability compared to Spree. Even though Solidus has lesser components, the changes are much easier for Ruby on Rails engineers to comprehend |
Though adaptability is much swifter and assembly of the web app is faster with the components, the drawback is that your Ruby on Rails engineer would find it harder to fix the codes as it's unsupported for years. |
Solidus |
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Search |
Solidus has two search plug-ins, ElasticProduct and Searchkick, that you can obtain from GitHub.
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Spree provides an API that has the property for various specialized high-functioning search platforms to select from. For example, we have Spree Maker Search, which allows customers to filter their searches by the product maker's name, or Spree Sunspot Search, which is a very robust and flexible full-text search.
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Draw |
Conclusion
We have looked at the pros and cons of both Solidus and Spree. A spree is an excellent option if you're looking for a free, open-source e-commerce platform that doesn't require much technical knowledge or expertise. It's also easy to customize and integrates with many third-party services.
On the other hand, Solidus is a paid version of Spree that offers additional features like real-time inventory management, multi-channel shipping, and advanced reporting tools. If you're looking for a more robust solution than what Spree provides, Solidus may be worth considering.
