PrestaShop 1.6 reached its official end of support on June 30, 2019, and 1.7 stopped being maintained when PrestaShop 9 came out in June 2025. A store on those versions keeps selling, but on a foundation with no patches, tied to old PHP and increasingly hard to connect to payment and shipping providers.
The ceiling is concrete: 1.6.1.x runs on PHP 7.1 at most, and PHP 7.1 has been unsupported since December 1, 2019. The current version is PrestaShop 9.2, released on September 30, 2026, which requires PHP 8.1 and supports up to PHP 8.5.
At DCisGlobal we see many stores in this position: built years ago, with a solid catalog and loyal customers, and nobody willing to touch them. That makes sense, because the store is making money. That's exactly why it pays to get it in order before a problem brings it to a halt.
What end of support means for PrestaShop 1.6
Since July 1, 2019, PrestaShop 1.6 has been maintained only by volunteers, outside PrestaShop's official channels. There are no new official releases and no guarantee that flaws will be fixed.
The signs of abandonment keep coming. On April 1, 2026, PrestaShop stopped generating and offering translation packs for 1.6 and earlier. In that same announcement, it recommended moving to PrestaShop 9.
Something similar happened with 1.7. In 2023 it entered a security-only maintenance phase, and the project announced that phase would end when 9.0.0 was released. That happened in June 2025.
Which PHP version each PrestaShop release supports
The table sums up which PHP versions each PrestaShop release runs on, from the lowest to the highest, and the current status of the newest PHP each one supports.
| PrestaShop version | Compatible PHP versions | Status of the newest PHP supported | Status of the version |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.6.1.x | 5.2 to 7.1 | Unsupported since 12/1/2019 | No official support since 6/30/2019 |
| 1.7.0 to 1.7.3 | 5.4 to 7.1 | Unsupported since 12/1/2019 | Not maintained |
| 1.7.4 | 5.6 to 7.1 | Unsupported since 12/1/2019 | Not maintained |
| 1.7.5 and 1.7.6 | 5.6 to 7.2 | Unsupported since 11/30/2020 | Not maintained |
| 1.7.7 | 7.1 to 7.3 | Unsupported since 12/6/2021 | Not maintained |
| 1.7.8 | 7.1 to 7.4 | Unsupported since 11/28/2022 | Maintenance ended with the 9.0 release |
| 8.0 to 8.2 | 7.2 to 8.1 | Unsupported since 12/31/2025 | 8.2 in extended support: security and critical fixes only |
| 9.0 | 8.1 to 8.4 | Supported until 12/31/2028 | Current line |
| 9.1 and 9.2 | 8.1 to 8.5 | Supported until 12/31/2029 | Current line (9.2 is the latest version) |
The business risks
Payments
Payment gateways keep updating their modules and their security requirements. When a provider stops shipping a version for 1.6, your store is left with an old module that may stop working the day the gateway changes something. If payments stop, sales stop.
On top of that, anyone taking card payments has to be able to show they protect that flow. An unpatched platform makes that conversation with your bank or gateway harder.
Integrations
E-invoicing, logistics, marketplaces, ERP and analytics: new connectors are built with PrestaShop 8 or 9 in mind. On 1.6, every integration ends up as a one-off project, more expensive and more fragile.
Security
An online store is, by definition, open to the internet and holds customer and order data. On unpatched versions, known flaws stay open. To put that in perspective: in August 2026 alone, the 8.2 branch received a security release with five fixes. Unmaintained versions don't get fixes like these.
Old PHP
No 1.6 or 1.7 release runs on a supported PHP version. And 8.0 through 8.2 top out at PHP 8.1, which lost support on December 31, 2025, and does not get the official fix for PHP2Shell, the critical PHP flaw fixed on October 21, 2026. We explain it in PHP2Shell: what it is and what to do and in PHP 8.1 end of life.
That's why, for stores leaving 1.6, we at DCisGlobal recommend targeting PrestaShop 9. Moving to 8.x today puts your store back on unsupported PHP: it works as a technical stepping stone, not as a destination.
What happens to modules and the theme when you migrate
This is the part that weighs most on the budget, and it helps to understand it in business terms.
The theme, meaning your store's design, doesn't carry over from 1.6 to newer versions: the template system changed starting with 1.7. In practice, the design is rebuilt. It's a good opportunity to improve the mobile experience and page speed, two things that affect sales.
Modules are reviewed one by one. Each one has three possible outcomes:
- Replace: there's a version compatible with PrestaShop 9, from the same vendor or another.
- Rebuild: it was custom work that adds value and gets rewritten for the new version.
- Remove: it's no longer used, or the new version includes it out of the box. For example, 9.2 ships with a native one-page checkout module.
Your data (products, customers, orders and URLs) is migrated. That's where the real business value lives. Preserving URLs, with redirects where needed, keeps you from losing Google rankings.
That's why leaving 1.6 is more like moving your store than upgrading it: the new store is built in parallel, the data is transferred, and you switch over once everything is tested.
Move to PrestaShop 9, migrate or harden: how to decide
Move to PrestaShop 9
This is the natural path when the platform still fits your sales model. You keep what your team already knows, regain support and get an orderly upgrade path: within the 9.x line, the official update assistant already handles moving from 9.0 or 9.1 to 9.2.
Migrate to another platform
This makes sense when the business has changed: wholesale, multiple warehouses, very large catalogs, or a decision not to maintain your own server. We also see it in stores coming from Magento 1, as we cover in Magento 1 end of life. If the store is part of a larger system, custom software development may be the best way out.
Harden while you plan
A well-run migration takes weeks. In the meantime, the current store gets protected: restricted access to the back office, malicious traffic filtering in front of the store, an isolated server, tested daily backups and monitoring. It's not a permanent fix. It's a bridge so you can migrate without rushing and without unnecessary risk.
What to do now
- Confirm the exact PrestaShop version and the PHP version on the server.
- Take a full backup (database and files) and test that it can be restored.
- Take inventory of modules and theme customizations: which ones are used and which ones affect sales.
- Harden the back office and the server while you decide.
- Build the plan with a technology assessment, with dates that avoid your peak selling seasons.
- Migrate in a test environment, test payments and shipping with test orders, and only then go live.
If the underlying problem is the server's PHP, our guide to upgrading PHP on unsupported systems gives the full picture.
How we solve it at DCisGlobal
We start with an assessment of your store: version, modules, theme, integrations and server health. From there we recommend a path and a phased plan, with your store selling the whole time.
We handle immediate hardening, data migration, the new design and the adaptation of modules and integrations. Then we stay with you through support and maintenance so the store doesn't fall behind again.
