Zen Cart Hosting: Launch Your Store with HostPapa
Zen Cart is one of the most popular free, open-source shopping cart platforms in the world, and we've helped thousands of store owners get it up and running fast. Our servers are built for Zen Cart's PHP and MySQL requirements, so you get the speed, reliability, and tools your store needs from day one.- NVMe Storage Built for eCommerce
- One-Click Zen Cart Install
- Free Migration, Free SSL, Free Domain
Plans as low as $2.95 per month2
POWERFUL ECOMMERCE HOSTING SOLUTIONS
What Is Zen Cart?
Zen Cart is a free, open-source eCommerce platform built on PHP and MySQL. It's a self-hosted shopping cart system, which means you own your store completely, with no monthly platform fees, no revenue cuts, and no limits on what you can sell. You install it on your hosting account, customize it with your own branding, and manage it through a built-in admin panel.
Originally based on osCommerce, Zen Cart has been actively developed since 2003 and is now on version 2.x, with a thriving community of developers, store owners, and contributors around the world. It's a strong choice for small and medium-sized businesses that want full control over their eCommerce store without paying for a closed platform.
What You Can Do with Zen Cart:
- Build a fully functional online store with unlimited products and categories.
- Accept payments through PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, FirstData, and more.
- Ship orders using built-in modules for UPS, USPS, FedEx, and Canada Post.
- Sell in multiple currencies and multiple languages.
- Customize your store design with 200+ free templates and a plugin library.
GET YOUR ONLINE STORE UP AND RUNNING
Who Should Use Zen Cart?
Zen Cart is a great fit if you want full control over your store without paying monthly platform fees. Here's who gets the most out of it:
- Small and medium-sized business owners who want a self-hosted store they own outright, with no revenue sharing and no dependency on a third-party platform.
- Established store owners migrating off older platforms (like osCommerce) who need a mature, actively maintained system with a familiar structure and a large plugin library.
- Developers and agencies managing client stores who want direct cPanel and MySQL access, clean PHP templating, and a platform the official Zen Cart docs specifically recommend pairing with cPanel hosting.
Zen Cart isn't the best choice if you're building on WordPress (WooCommerce fits better there) or if you want a fully managed, no-code storefront like Shopify. But if you want a free, self-hosted platform you control completely, it's one of the most proven options available.
Powerful Zen Cart Hosting
If for any reason you’re not satisfied with our services, you can cancel at any time in the first 30 days of signup to receive a full refund for the service.
Domain fees are non-refundable.
Everything Your Zen Cart Store Needs
NVMe Storage: Speed Your Shoppers Will Notice
One-Click Zen Cart Install
Free SSL Certificate Included on Every Plan
Free Website Migration
Global Content Delivery Network (CDN)
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
24/7 Support
Need Help?
Having trouble installing Zen Cart? Get 24/7 support from the PapaSquad by phone, live chat, and email.
Get Started In 4 Easy Steps
1-Click Zen Cart Installation
Installing Zen Cart on your HostPapa account is quick and beginner‑friendly. There’s no need to download files, create databases, or use FTP. The Softaculous app installer does the technical work for you in just a few clicks.
Open cPanel
Log in to your dashboard, then open cPanel for your account.
Find Zen Cart
Search for Zen Cart in the Softaculous app installer.
Click Install
Hit the "install" button to start the Zen Cart installation process.
Follow the Prompts
Follow the instructions to finish your Zen Cart installation.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT ECOMMERCE SOLUTION FOR YOU
How Does Zen Cart Compare to Other eCommerce Platforms?
Not sure if Zen Cart is the right choice for your store? Here's a quick look at how it compares to the most popular alternatives.
Zen Cart vs. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a plugin you add to an existing WordPress site, which means you're managing two systems at once, WordPress and WooCommerce, and paying for plugins to cover features that Zen Cart includes by default. Multi-currency support, multi-language storefronts, and built-in coupon and gift certificate tools all require separate WooCommerce extensions.
Zen Cart gives you all of that out of the box. If you're already running a WordPress site and want to bolt on a store, WooCommerce makes sense. If you're building a dedicated store from the ground up and want fewer moving parts, Zen Cart is the cleaner choice.
Zen Cart vs. PrestaShop
PrestaShop and Zen Cart are both free, self-hosted platforms with strong built-in feature sets, so they're the closest comparison of the three. The main difference is complexity. PrestaShop is built for mid-size to larger merchants and comes with a steeper learning curve, a more complex admin panel, and a paid marketplace for many of its best modules.
Zen Cart keeps things simpler, with a more straightforward admin interface and a large library of free community plugins. If you're a small business owner who wants a powerful store without enterprise-level overhead, Zen Cart is the easier starting point.
Zen Cart vs. OpenCart
OpenCart is lightweight and quick to set up, but it trades depth for simplicity. Its built-in feature set is more limited than Zen Cart's, and you'll reach for paid extensions faster as your store grows. Zen Cart ships with more native functionality, especially around tax rules, shipping modules, and payment gateways, which makes it a better fit for stores that need those tools on day one without additional cost.
Both platforms run on standard PHP/MySQL hosting, and both install in one click through Softaculous on any HostPapa plan.
Grow Your Business With Confidence, We’ve Got Your Website Security Covered
CloudLinux™ OS
Stability, Security & Fair Performance
CloudLinux™ OS transforms shared hosting into a more stable, secure, and reliable environment. Isolating each account makes sure no single website can slow down the server or compromise others in the event of a breach. The result? Fair resource distribution, stronger protection, and consistently high performance for every website you host.
Imunify360
Advanced Website Security for Peace of Mind
Keep your website safe with Imunify360. This all-in-one security suite provides enterprise-grade protection, working silently in the background to protect every site on your account. Comes with automated malware detection and removal, intrusion prevention, a powerful Web Application Firewall (WAF), and proactive defense against emerging threats.Protection Power
A Trust Seal to Secure & Monitor Your Site
Protection Power safeguards your website with advanced threat detection and DDoS protection. It also boosts performance with a built-in global CDN and Anycast DNS. Your content is now delivered faster to visitors worldwide, while layered security features, including malware scans and real-time alerts, keep your site safe and trusted.
We migrate your website & domain for Free.
(Yes, you read that right.)
Try our Web Hosting services risk-free for 30 days1. If you don't love us, we’ll let you return to your existing web host for Free!
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Compare Our Web Hosting Plans
Want to dive into the numbers? At HostPapa, we're proud of our powerful, secure, and reliable Web Hosting servers.
100% Satisfaction Guarantee
Number of supported websites
Email addresses
Inbox storage
Website staging
Softaculous script installer
CMS scripts 1-click setup (WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal etc.)
Free domain registration or transfer1
1
25GB
2
1GB
5
100GB
10
1GB
Unlimited
200GB
40
2GB
Unlimited
Unmetered
Unlimited
2GB
Number of pages
No-code, easy wizard-driven setup
Site backups
Multilingual sites
Build from any device
Responsive, mobile-ready sites
SEO optimization tools
2
2 Latest versions
2 Languages
2
2 Latest versions
2 Languages
2
2 Latest versions
2 Languages
Email addresses
Email forwarding accounts
Email autoresponders
IMAP/IMAP-SSL connections
POP3/POP3-SSL connections
SMTP/SMTP-SSL connections
Email aliases
Email virus scanning
SpamAssassin spam protection
Outgoing filtering
Webmail
Business-grade email available
Individual mailbox storage
Overall mailbox storage
Email sends per hour
Email attachment size
2
2
Unlimited
25
1GB
2GB
200
20MB
10
10
Unlimited
25
1GB
5GB
200
20MB
40
40
Unlimited
25
2GB
10GB
300
20MB
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
25
2GB
20GB
600
20MB
Daily malware scan
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Protected pages
Manual vulnerability scan
Secure website trust seal
Automated malware detection
Real-time notifications and alerts
Malware removal assistance
Website performance acceleration
Improved page load speed
Dynamic website acceleration
Asset preloading
Anycast DNS
Speed 10/40/100GBPS
Layer 7 DDoS protection
Layer 3, 4, 5, 6 DDoS protection
Instant purge
One-time
One-time
One-time
Server firewall, monitoring, and intrusion detection
DDoS attack prevention and responses
Multi-factor biometric access data centre
Redundant network carriers
Network monitoring
Brute force detection
CloudLinux O/S protection
Imunify360
ModSecurity
Standard SSL
Domain privacy protection
Premium SSL
Automated website backup
5GB
5GB
10GB
Server resources
Entry points
CPU cores
MySQL usage
PHP 5.6, 7.0, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 8.0, 8.1 (choose your version)
Memory
I/O Usage
Inodes
Minimum cron job interval
Database size
Table size
Hosted domains
Subdomains
Unlimited add-on domains
Unlimited parked domains
Server resources
- Entry points: 10
- CPU cores: 1 core
- MySQL usage: 1 core MySQL
- Memory per process: 1024MB
- Inodes: 150,000
- Minimum Cron Job Interval: 30 minutes
- Database size: 500MB
- Table size: 250MB
10
1 Core
1 Core MySQL
1,024MB
2,048 KB/s
150,000
30 Minutes
500MB
250MB
1
20
Server resources
- Entry points: 20
- CPU cores: 2 core
- MySQL usage: 2 core MySQL
- Memory per process: 1024MB
- Inodes: 300,000
- Minimum Cron Job Interval: 30 minutes
- Database size: 1000MB
- Table size: 500MB
20
2 Core
2 Core MySQL
1,024MB
3,072 KB/s
300,000
30 Minutes
1GB
500MB
5
100
Server resources
- Entry points: 40
- CPU cores: 4 core
- MySQL usage: 4 core MySQL
- Memory per process: 1024MB
- Inodes: 450,000
- Minimum Cron Job Interval: 20 minutes
- Database size: 2000MB
- Table size: 1000MB
40
4 Core
4 Core MySQL
1,024MB
4,096 KB/s
450,000
20 Minutes
2GB
1GB
Unlimited
Unlimited
Server resources
- Entry points: 40
- CPU cores: 4 core
- MySQL usage: 4 core MySQL
- Memory per process: 1024MB
- Inodes: 450,000
- Minimum Cron Job Interval: 20 minutes
- Database size: 2000MB
- Table size: 1000MB
80
8 Core
8 Core MySQL
2,048MB
8,192 KB/s
600,000
10 Minutes
4GB
2GB
Unlimited
Unlimited
Frequently Asked Questions
All your questions in one place! Whether it’s helping you choose a domain name, walking you through our website builder, or configuring your cloud email system for your business, we’re here to help!
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Click below and directly reach one of our awesome support people.
What is Zen Cart, and is it really free?
Zen Cart is a free, open-source shopping cart platform built on PHP and MySQL. You download and install it for free, and you own your store completely. The only cost is your hosting plan. Zen Cart itself never charges monthly fees or takes a cut of your sales.
What version of PHP does Zen Cart require?
Zen Cart v2.x (the current version as of 2026) requires PHP 8.2 to 8.5. Our hosting plans let you select your PHP version inside cPanel without contacting support, so you're always running the version Zen Cart needs.
Can I install Zen Cart with one click?
Yes. We include Softaculous in cPanel on every plan. Open Softaculous, search for Zen Cart, and click Install. You'll be prompted to enter your store name, admin username, and password. The full installation takes about 2 minutes.
Does HostPapa support the MySQL version Zen Cart needs?
Yes. Zen Cart v2.x requires MySQL 8.0 or higher. All HostPapa plans include MySQL 8.0, so you're fully compatible right out of the box.
Can I migrate my existing Zen Cart store to HostPapa?
Yes, and we'll do it for free. Our migration team handles the full move: your Zen Cart files, databases, product images, customer records, and order history. Your store stays live throughout the process.
Which HostPapa plan should I choose for Zen Cart?
The Essentials plan works for new or small stores (under 200 products, low traffic). The Growth plan is a better fit for active stores with a growing product catalog. The Premium or Elite plan is the right choice for high-traffic stores that need more server resources and advanced security.
What payment gateways does Zen Cart support?
Zen Cart supports a wide range of payment gateways out of the box, including PayPal (Standard, Express, and Pro), Authorize.net, FirstData, Stripe (via a free plugin), and Square (via a free plugin). You can also add regional payment methods through the Zen Cart plugin library.
Does Zen Cart work with cPanel?
Yes. Zen Cart is designed for cPanel-based Linux hosting, which is exactly what HostPapa provides. The official Zen Cart documentation recommends cPanel-based hosting specifically because it gives you direct access to your databases, file manager, and Softaculous installer.
Is Zen Cart still being actively developed?
Yes. As of 2026, Zen Cart v2.x is actively maintained, and v3.x is in development. The project has a large community on zen-cart.com, a full documentation site at docs.zen-cart.com, and regular security and compatibility updates.
Can I customize my Zen Cart store's design?
Yes. Zen Cart includes 200+ free templates and a large library of free and paid plugins for features like advanced search, product filters, loyalty programs, subscription products, and more.
