Zencart is one of the open source ecommerce scripts that has good reviews. OS Commerce is another very popular open source ecommerce software script.
PrestaShop is a good one, i use this for my digital product sell and its have the ability like "Download guard" script. I like it. rating 8/10 because its still updating some major features and some addons are paid lol
It is depends on requirements for each store and my favorite is Oscommerce, Zencart, magento and prestashop
It also depends on requirements for hosting. For example Presta is very fast system on any common hosting. If you wish to run Magento you have to select a better one.
Enterprise level marketing features, better layout by default, more robust everything, etc. Prestashop does have it's advantages though if you are running something not so pressing. Nigel
We prefer Magento. My company started offering Magento set up services and we see that many eCommerce sites are moving to Magento.
I use Prestashop. Easy to install, lots of great support and tons of free modules and templates available. Has some minor bugs, but nothing you can't work around.
Watch out for the zencats, magentos / etc. They may be simple to use but are slow as they're burdened with too much junk mainly the integrated template systems. Oscommerce can give you a barebones uberfast start (that you should strip down even farther if you know what you're doing) and then add mods to your exact specs, with no excess of database queries or other junk. Unfortunately the new oscommerce 3 beta they're releasing is one of these template based ones. Really ask yourself who the hell really uses these sytems. It just sounds good to newbs. Everytime a page loads you have excess queries as to which template and a bunch of other useless configuration /etc queries. If you know what you're doing oscommerce for sure, if you have no clue whatsoever try magento or zencart. If you know mysql and php even a fair amount try oscommerce rc2 on your site and check the speed differences compared to the other juggernauts that at first look all nice and shiney with a bunch of great features, but assess what you'll really use.
I have a custom written Java app that makes heavy use of Amazon web services for one of my major big-time sites. Other than that, I spend my time on my day job. But when I have the time, I tinker with PHP and Python script to replicate the success of the first site. So, I don't use any public domain script - but I should check them out. Helen
yeah many friends said magento not recommended for newbie.. I like wordpress with e-commerce plugin (but I forgot the plugin)
interspire if going with a paid solution - i think its the best on the market zencart if going for a free solution and i totally agree magento is not for beginners and still has a long way to go