Why Should You Upgrade to OpenCart 3?
If your online store is currently running on an older version of OpenCart 1 or 2, now is time to upgrade to OpenCart 3. The platform introduced many improvements over its predecessors, making it faster, more flexible, and easier to use for both store owners and developers.
At Antropy, we’ve worked with every major version of OpenCart, and we’ve seen first-hand how version 3 offers a great combination of improvements that make it easier to manage, customise, and grow an online store. While OpenCart 4 is on the horizon, it’s still finding its feet, which is why we recommend OpenCart 3 as the most reliable and production-ready option right now (check out our recent article on why OpenCart 4 isn’t quite ready for prime time yet).
Twig Templates
OpenCart 3 saw the replacement of the older template (.tpl) system (essentially HTML files with PHP scattered in) with Twig, a templating engine for PHP. This makes makes template files easier to use and safer, with automatic output escaping - saving you from any development error making your site more vulnerable.
Built-In Extension Marketplace
One of the most significant changes in OpenCart 3 is the addition of a built-in extension marketplace. This allows you to search for, buy and install extensions in the admin panel, which will save you a lot of time and money.
Nicer Admin UX
The admin area is a big step forward compared to earlier versions, making day-to-day store management much more straightforward. As previously mentioned, the introduction of both a built-in marketplace and template editor makes working on your site much easier, and will save you paying for developer time on these tasks. While the overall look and feel builds on the style of OpenCart 2, it’s a major improvement over OpenCart 1, with refinements that make the interface less cluttered, more intuitive, and quicker to navigate.
Updated Reports and Statistics
OpenCart 3 introduced improvements to reports and statistics, giving you a clearer insight and better understanding of how your online store is performing. You can now enable/disable specific reports, depending on what you think is useful for your store. Sales, returns, shipping and customer activity can all be tracked in more detail.
Multi-Language and Multi-Store SEO URLs
Having good SEO is a huge factor in the performance of your store, and the introduction of built in multi-language and multi-store SEO URLs helps massively. In earlier versions, you were limited to a single SEO keyword per product or category, which made it difficult to optimise properly when running a multilingual or multi-store setup. With version 3, every store and language can have its own tailored SEO URLs, giving you more control over how your content appears in search results and making it easier to rank well internationally.
Language Editor
The built-in language editor is another major improvement on previous versions of OpenCart. Even if your store doesn't use multiple languages, this is handy for changing certain words on the store - for example you could change "Checkout" to "Secure Checkout". Plus, you can do this all without touching any of the website code, once again saving time and money spent on a developer.
Security and Reliablity
When setting up a new OpenCart 3 site, you’ll see a prompt to move the storage/ folder outside of the public web root. This folder contains sensitive files such as logs, cache, and sessions, and leaving it inside the web root could expose your store to unnecessary risk. By moving it outside the publicly accessible area, OpenCart 3 helps protect critical data and improves the overall security and reliability of your store. Another security improvement is the change from template files to Twig, as mentioned earlier - Twig leaves less room for error.
As well as this, OpenCart 3 has fixed some reliability issues. It has more robust handling of login sessions, fixing some issues with 'missing orders' where payment is taken but the order doesn't go through properly. It also comes with better handling of the store email out-the-box, improving on order confirmation emails and contact form handling.
Conclusion
If your store is still running on OpenCart 1 or 2, upgrading to OpenCart 3 is one of the best steps you can take to improve your store (from both a customer and admin perspective), and future-proof the site. The improvements in usability, experience, security and flexibility makes it far superior to previous versions. For these reasons, OpenCart 3 is the version we recommend if you're looking to upgrade your online store.
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