What it does
CubeCart is a self-hosted ecommerce application with a product catalogue, checkout, orders, customer accounts and merchant reporting. It supports option-combination stock, group-based pricing, digital download controls and a range of payment and shipping modules.
A CubeCart stock matrix tracks combinations of product options. For a garment, the blue medium can have different availability from the blue large, with its own price and SKU.
In Admin > Inventory > Options, create an option group and add its values, including any price or weight changes. Open the product's Options tab to assign those groups. Use an option matrix for the combinations that need separate stock records, then pair it with low-stock warnings.
Digital products have download-expiry and download-count controls. Staff can edit orders, add internal or customer-visible notes and record dispatch tracking. Customer groups can affect price, shipping and category access.
The GPLv3 application is free to download and operate on compatible hosting. For manual installation, upload the extracted files, open the site's setup directory and choose Install CubeCart. Optional managed hosting includes a 14-day trial; its hosting service is separate from the free software.
Store management uses an administrator account. CubeCart also supplies a shared public demonstration with temporary credentials and a three-hour reset. It is useful for exploring the interface, while an actual shop needs its own installation. The REST API remains marked Beta.
Strengths
- Option-combination stock and customer groups support detailed catalogue rules
- Digital downloads have expiry and count controls
Watch out for
- The current REST API is labelled Beta
- The free software requires a hosting environment and installation
Best for
- Merchants wanting a self-managed store with variant stock and digital fulfilment controls
Sources
- CubeCart — Open Source Ecommerce (Oct 25, 2026)
- CubeCart catalogue, order and administrator capabilities (Oct 27, 2026)
- Download the free CubeCart application (Oct 27, 2026)
- v6/LICENSE.txt at v6.x-master · cubecart/v6 · GitHub (Oct 25, 2026)
- CubeCart product options and stock matrices (Oct 27, 2026)
- CubeCart administrator demonstration and reset limits (Oct 27, 2026)
- CubeCart installation choices (Oct 27, 2026)
- CubeCart local administrator account access and recovery (Oct 28, 2026)