// the find
smartstore/SmartStoreNET
Open Source ASP.NET MVC Enterprise eCommerce Shopping Cart Solution
SmartStoreNET is an ASP.NET MVC 5 / EF6 e-commerce platform — the predecessor to Smartstore 5. The README opens with a deprecation warning directing you to the ASP.NET Core successor. This is a dead branch of a living project, not an abandoned project per se.
- The legacy codebase is large and battle-tested — 1440 forks suggests real production deployments and a healthy ecosystem of plugins and customizations built against it.
- Architecture shows genuine thought: custom hook system for EF save events, a proper multi-map/tree collection library, and a layered service/repository pattern that was ahead of the NopCommerce-style clones of the era.
- Autofac DI with module-based registration means the plugin system is actually extensible without gut-wrenching coupling — uncommon for MVC 5 era commerce platforms.
- It's abandoned. Last push June 2023, and the maintainers themselves tell you to leave. Running this in production means you own all security patches from here on.
- Hard dependency on MS SQL Server (Express or Compact) and IIS — no Linux, no Postgres, no Docker path without a full rewrite. That wall is why Smartstore 5 exists.
- EF6 with checked-in NUnit and NuGet executables in /lib is a time capsule. Migrating even a medium-sized store to the Core successor is a near-greenfield effort — the data model changed significantly.
- The checked-in binary pile (Telerik, Facebook SDK DLLs, msvcp140 redistributables) in /lib signals old practices that complicate auditing and licensing — you can't easily tell what versions you're actually running.