What is nopCommerce?
If you’re looking to work with ASP.Net based e-commerce store, nopCommerce comes into the Top 5 list. Except nopCommerce, most of ASP.NET-based e-commerce platforms are paid and little difficult to setup. nopCommerce is highly stable, usable, and fully customizable open source platform.
nopCommerce is a comprehensive solution built around ASP.NET, MVC and MS SQL server used as a backend. nopCommerce offers an opportunity to build and manage your online shop with evident support by an active nopCommerce community.
WHY nopCommerce?
There are plenty of reasons why nopcommerce is best available solution for your online shop. Following are some of the points to be considered:
- nopCommerce is user friendly platform from development point of view as it is built on an MVC architecture.
- nopCommerce is stable solution for e-commerce experts who are seeking highest level of security and scalability.
- e-commerce experts will have complete source code available as a FREE download. Hence, it can be customized as the way you need without any restrictions.
- nopCommerce is mobile compatible, so there is no need to worry about building a mobile version of your online shop.
- Thanks to extremely active community, nopCommerce is becoming more stable and secure with release of each new version.
- nopCommerce allows upload of unlimited products which makes it effective from small to enterprise level applications.
Small Business or Large Enterprise? nopCommerce is perfect choice for you!!!
1) Mobile commerce: nopCommerce makes easy for webmasters and business owners alike to create a mobile-friendly version of their website. Businesses that fail to create mobile-friendly sites will inevitably lose out to their competitors as this market segment continues to grow.
2) Multi-store features: Through nopCommerce, you can host multiple front-end stores with administrator page. A administration page makes it easy to manage multiple store fronts and even allows you to share catalogs and customer data between stores.
3) Payment features: With nopCommerce, it’s easier for businesses to accept all major credit and debit cards, accept purchase orders, and create custom payment method rules per country.
nopCommerce Requirements:
You will need following installed on your server to run nopCommerce:
- Operating Systems: Windows 8, Windows 7,Windows Server 2008,Windows Server 2012
- Web servers: Internet Information Service (IIS) 7.0 or above
- Tools or software: ASP.NET4.5 (MVC 5.0),.NET Framework 4.5.1 or above
- Database server: MS SQL Server 2008 or above
nopCommerce on shared hosting
nopCommerce is always been more resource-intensive than any average website. It will require Full Trust level and dedicated application pool. nopCommerce eats too much RAM resource of shared server hence application pool gets crashed as it reaches to memory limit set on Web server. if you are running multiple instances of nopCommerce, better to consider VPS Hosting. We have listed some of frequent problems with nopCommerce in Shared hosting:
General problems with nopCommerce in shared hosting
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nopCommerce is way too slow for business:
nopcommerce is resource hungry e-commerce platform. If you are running your online shop in shared server you may feel slowness. It is due to large product images, multiple front end catalogs, unusual large log files, limited application pool memory, complex framework database queries and lower configured servers. It is normal that your host advise you to move to VPS from shared server because your website is chewing too much resources of shared server which is affecting other customers.
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Frequent application pool crash in IIS
Shared WebHosting always come up with several restrictions. If nopCommerce store exceeds the memory limit assigned through IIS, it will crash and website will stop. In such cases, we can assign dedicated application pool or increase the memory of application pool.
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Limited database space
In shared hosting you will get limited amount of database space which may arise problems if your store is going to expand in multi folds. In some other cases, SQL Server will start to take more RAM resource. Mostly, nopCommerce databases are responsible for most load on SQL server. Preventive actions we can take are; profile the SQL queries, shrunk the database files and truncate database log files as much as possible.
Why nopCommerce boosts on VPS hosting?
While nopCommerce provides incredible benefits for any ecommerce business regardless of industry or size, ultimate performance is reserved for those who host them on Windows VPS. The greatest benefit that the Windows platform offers is the leverage that results from reliable uptime and service. In other words, with the strength of VPS hosting behind it, nopCommerce empowers your business with:
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Optimal performance:
Virtualization technologies are able to stand on their own in absolute isolation. This creates greater stability and security, which results in optimal performance for your commercial website. Since consumers are getting more demanding, it’s vital that your website not only attracts customers aesthetically, but that it provides an excellent user experience as well. With VPS hosting, you can rest assured that your site will be performing at its best 24/7, engaging each visitor that arrives at the site.
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Greater security:
Basic shared server accounts are riskier and less secure than Windows VPS. Though the server is still shared with other users, the specific server setup isolates data and prevents unauthorized access. This not only protects your business’s data, but that of your customers as well. Since ecommerce security is one of the most important factors behind the reputation of your site, it’s critical to ensure the greatest security possible with Windows VPS.
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Reliability:
Just one hour of unscheduled downtime can cost a business up to $300,000 per hour. Not only does a VPS keep nopCommerce running 24/7, but it also ensures greater reliability for your site. Furthermore, if you’re worried about server resources such as bandwidth, VPS is specifically designed to grow as your business’s needs grow. This is why VPS hosting provides greater reliability than traditional solutions. Since everything is virtualized, you no longer have to worry about lagging, downtime, loading time, and other issues that would otherwise haunt your site.
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Greater control:
As a business owner, it can be intimidating to feel as though you have no control over the direction of your online business. Fortunately, VPS server hosting allows you to access your web-based control panel from anywhere. With nopCommerce, you can always ensure your customers are enjoying the greatest service on your site. VPS is also customizable to meet your specific requirements, ensuring the unique needs of your business are addressed.
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Affordability:
Since VPS is designed to help businesses in every industry and every size, small-businesses can enjoy enterprise-class solutions at an affordable price. Coupled with nopCommerce, small ecommerce businesses can create a high performing site without having to worry about an oversized budget.
Understanding the Benefits of VPS Hosting for nopCommerce
When it comes to finding a VPS hosting solution for nopCommerce, it’s vital to consider compatibility, pricing, speed, management tools, reliability, and technical support. The biggest benefit the Windows platform provides is that you can leverage the features of applications that no other platforms can support. Furthermore, large amounts of RAM minimize delays while increasing the speed of simpler functions. The three main benefits of Windows VPS include:
- Large disk space
- Affordability
- Reputation
VPS is hosted on the Windows 2008. While Windows 2008 R2 is similar in code to Windows Vista, there are notable differences that differentiate it from other Windows operating systems. Microsoft made the decision to simplify the server core, removing the .NET framework, PowerShell, and Internet Explorer features. By removing these components, Microsoft reduced the number of areas that hackers could attack and disrupt the program. Now that it’s on a smaller cover, Microsoft says that up to 70 percent of security breaches have been prevented.
nopCommerece Installation: Easy steps
[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHkX7BdcdWA[/embedyt] Failover clustering also ensures that features are kept running with minimal downtime. When coupled with self-healing NTFS, Windows Server 2008 becomes one of the most powerful hosting solutions available today. Another key component is the Hyper-V VPS server, which partitions multiple instances for the user experience. This minimizes downtime and increases the reliability of Windows VPS.
Setting up nopCommerece in Visual Studio 2012
[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DybChZOc1cY[/embedyt]
If you’re using nopCommerce as your shopping cart solution, it’s critical to give it the resources necessary for ultimate performance. With Windows VPS, nopCommerce becomes one of the most powerful solutions for your ecommerce business.
Case study:
Upon searching lots of forums we can conclude that; “nopCommerce is not meant for shared hosting unless you have only one store with few catalogs”.
In order to run nopCommerce smooth, you will need at least 1 GB dedicated RAM, dedicated application pool and full trust level. We have noticed that even fresh installation of nopCommerce with demo store approximately takes 100 MB of memory. Overtime number of products, images, database queries, size of database logs and number of stores increase and required memory reaches to approx. 500 to 600 MB of RAM. These requirements may not be fulfilled in shared hosting. Hence, we would always recommend that entrepreneurs wanting to launch a business website to implement their online presence should consider VPS hosting.
At AccuWebHosting, we have 2 plans with 1 GB RAM which are sufficient to host nopCommerce application.
1) Premium VPS plans: WebMaster VPS Opal plan is best suit plan for beginners with ready to go nopCommerce hosting and basic support.
2) Super Economy VPS plans: Super Economy I VPS plan is cheap but identical alternate with self managed option.
You can refer difference between Premium Windows VPS and Super Economy Windows VPS plans from following URL:
While writing this article, we referred lots of forums and blogs. Following is a case study we would like to share here.
An entrepreneur purchased shared hosting for nopCommerce. Soon he was disappointed with performance of server and moved to VPS hosting. Again, he faced hard time with VPS and was desperately looking for alternate host. Someone suggested him “AccuWebHosting.com” and today that entrepreneur is happy customer of AccuWebHosting. READ MORE
