Monero ($XMR) integrations: an overview of current and future plugins for eCommerce, online shops and CMS systems
A cryptocurrency is only as good as its places of exchange - in the case of Monero, the privacy-centric cryptocurrency has already a reasonable amount of shop and online integrations available. Here is a short overview on the status of Monero (XMR) integrations.
The website monerointegrations.com has a good and tangible overview of the existing shop plugins and integrations for CMS systems. Their github repository currently lists the following existing integrations:
- monerowp - Monero WooCommerce Plugin for Wordpress.
- monerops - Monero Prestashop addon, currently compatible with Prestashop version 1.6.x, but 1.7 compatibility is in the making.
- monerowhmcs is an integration for WHMCS (Web Hosting Automation Platform). The status of this integration is "work in progress", if you have knowledge in the system you can help out and start adding features.
- monerophp is the Monero PHP library and JsonRPC Client, which basically means "general purpose Monero integrations for all things PHP". On this basis, other integrations or individual solutions based on PHP can be written.
- moneroshopify is a stub for now, preparing for a possible Monero Shopify integration. The status of this integration is unknown, but if Shopify would support Monero payments this would rather be huge.
As recently (Sept 14, 2017) suggested by SerHack (the user behind most of the Monero integrations) in the Monero Forums, upcoming and planned integrations which are on the horizon are as follows:
- WHMCS - finishing integration to the WHMCS Web Hosting Automation Platform would have a multiplicator-effect, as the system is based on sub-hosting services.
- Magento is a very popular eCommerce platform (which even calls itself the #1 platform), so integrating Monero would have a massive boost in adoption.
- Opencart is a free and Open Source eCommerce platform. A dedicated plugin for OpenCart would be very welcome, although there is an Opencart integration already possible via coinpayments.
Monerointegrations aside, what are other options or plugins available to use as of today to integrate Monero in a current web-project? While direct integrations are a nice thing, they also mean you have to run and maintain an active Monero node for your integration project to work. The nice and easy thing about coinpayments is, you don't have to actively run a client, as their webservice offers a wallets for over 75 coins, including Monero.
Of course this also can be seen as a problem, as most people (and cypherpunks for sure) want to 'cut out the middle man', what coinpayments definitely is. Still it offers an option to immediately accept and use Monero in a large amount of online systems and projects already:
Here is a table and overview of most popular shop- and ecommerce systems and their integration status in Monero:
| Logo | XMR | CP? | Tech | License | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | NO | YES | ? | Commercial | aMember Pro is a membership software also featuring recurring payments and "200+ payment methods". |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GNU GPLv3 | Arastta eCommerce is a 'Free Cart Software' |
 | NO | YES | PHP | Commercial | blesta, billing platform for providers. |
 | NO | YES | PHP | Commercial w. free option (Apache License Version 2.0) | Box Billing, billing & client management software |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GNU GPL | Drupal is an Open Source CMS and framework. |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GNU GPL v3 | HikaShop is an e-commerce solution for Joomla (compatible with Joomla 1.5 to 3.x) |
 | W.I.P. | YES | PHP | OSL v3, AFL v3 | Magento is a large e-commerce system (previously owned by eBay) |
 | W.I.P. | YES | PHP | GNU GPL | OpenCart is an Online store management system |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GNU GPL | OsCommerce is a very popular Open Source e-Commerce solution, with "8,651 free add-ons and 20,608 live sites" |
 | YES | YES | PHP | OSL | Prestashop is a free, open source e-commerce solution published under the Open Software License (OSL) |
 | NO | YES | PHP | ? | Tomatocart is an Open source shopping cart solution branched from osCommerce 3 |
 | W.I.P. | YES | PHP | commercial | WHCMS is a recurring Invoicing & Payment Capture with the with the WHMCS billing and automation platform. |
 | YES | YES | PHP | GNU GPL | WooCommerce for Wordpress is a popular and simple e-commerce plugin for Wordpress with free base product |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GNU GPL | WP-eCommerce for Wordpress is a popular e-commerce plugin for Wordpress |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GPL v2 | Ubercart is a shopping cart system for Drupal. |
 | NO | YES | PHP | Commercial | X-Cart was the first PHP cart system, commercial (but Open Source) |
 | NO | YES | PHP | GNU GPL | Zen Cart is an online store management system |
 | NO | NO | RUBY | New BSD | Spree Ecommerce is a complete open source e-commerce solution built with Ruby on Rails. |
| Django-Shop | NO | NO | PYTHON | Copyright | Django Shop aims to be a the easy, fun and fast shop counterpart to django-CMS |
TLDR;
There are a lot of options and available integrations via Coinpayments, which support the cryptocurrency Monero already. For a true cypherpunk (but also for people who want to control their funds and integrations), we need to get more integrations into existing systems out there. A good way to start is to support SerHack with his current drive to extend direct XMR integrations. What would be advisable is to create a small HOWTO (maybe based on monerophp for PHP integrations) and to further extend the availability of Monero libraries for other programming languages. As of today, we have implementations for Node.js, PHP, Python and .NET. Other language integrations are hopefully to follow soon.