What is it?

SpreeCommerce is an Open source eCommerce platform built with RubyOnRails - the best web development framework in the world (in our opinion).  It's a solid eCommerce option with a strong community, easy to use admin area and great eCommerce functionality.

Theming

Theming Spree is done in one of 2 ways.  Either you can make minor changes using it's "deface" system or, override any template layout or partial.  It's very simple to use, gives your total control of every aspect of the site  (including checkout) and will be completely familiar to any Rails developer. 

Functionality

Spree is fairly light weight out of the box, but does come with the basics of eCommerce well covered.  Tax classes and Rates can be applied to different products and shipping rates for different geographical regions.  Shipping, discounts, stock, product management, variants, multi-site and order management are all equally comprehensive, easy to manage and feature complete. 

Addons and Modules

Spree has a selection of well tested, high code-quality addons including  Mailchimp integration,  subscriptions, wishlists, and addressbooks.  

Custom Development

SpeeCommerce is based on rails.  This is a big advantage.  The codebase is familiar to any rails developer.  Rails developers are easy to find and generally good.  Developing custom functionality is done in the standard way -  adding migrations, models, controllers and views to the app directly or as a Gem, if you want to re-use and share the functionality. Extending the admin area - adding new content types or new fields to products - is straightforward.  Its a very flexible, powerful, professional system.  

Costs

Spree is Open source - it's free as in speech and beers as they say.  Addons are generally developed by and for the community and are free of charge.  Support though is not officially provided so you will need to work with a developer to help set up hosting and  apply security patches. There is a strong developer community that will help.  Spree is software that you download and install on your own web servers.  Depending on traffic you should budget from $30/month to host your site.  

Pros

• Solid eComemrce functionality
• Good selection of free addons
• Fantastic code quality
• Flexible
• Easy to use
• Fast
• Easily Customisable

Cons

• Not many themes available. 
• Not supported by a big company
• Not as wide a range of modules as some platforms

Example Sites

Lots of very nice websites run on Spree.  Have a browse:
www.urbanladder.com,  www.meundies.com, www.chipotle.com, bonobos.com, huckberry.com

Conclusion

Spree is our favourite open source eCommerce solution.  If you are looking to build an ecommerce empire and want control, flexibility and speed and want to build on a great quality codebase, Spree is the best choice.