PrestaShop 1.7 in 2026: stay or upgrade?
Many shops still run PrestaShop 1.7 – and run it well. Yet the question “upgrade or not” comes back with every module failure, every e-mail from the hosting company and every new payment gateway version. Here is an honest picture for 2026: what really threatens a shop on 1.7, when it is reasonable to stay, when to upgrade, and to which version.
The facts for 2026
- The last 1.7 release is 1.7.8.11, from January 2024 – a security fix. The 1.7.8 branch has been in extended support since early 2023, receiving only critical fixes.
- PrestaShop 1.7.8 runs on PHP 7.4 at most. PHP 7.4 has had no security fixes since November 2022 – for more than three years.
- PrestaShop 8 has a PHP problem too. Its recommended PHP 8.1 stopped receiving security fixes on December 31, 2025, and the 8.x branch does not support newer PHP versions.
- PrestaShop 9 runs on PHP 8.1–8.4, is built on Symfony 6.4 LTS, and is today the only branch with a multi-year outlook.
What really threatens a shop on 1.7
- Security. Most PrestaShop break-ins do not target the core but modules – and authors increasingly ship fixes only for 8 and 9. On an unsupported PHP, holes in PHP itself stay open too. Known module vulnerabilities are published by, among others, Friends of Presta.
- Hosting. Providers retire old PHP versions. PHP 7.4 is often still available today, but “for a fee” or “until the end of the year” – and a forced PHP change means a shop that suddenly stops working.
- Payments and integrations. Payment gateways, carriers and price comparison sites update their APIs. New versions of their modules support 1.7 less and less.
- Cost in time. Every change to the shop takes longer, because you have to hunt for old module versions and work around limitations.
When it is still reasonable to stay
Staying on 1.7 for a few more months makes sense when the shop is stable, you are not planning new integrations, and a migration would land in the peak season. In that case, cover the minimum:
- the latest 1.7.8.x and the latest module versions that exist for 1.7,
- removal of unused modules (each is a potential hole),
- a WAF or server rules blocking known attacks, an up-to-date server operating system,
- a daily off-server backup, with a tested restore,
- a migration date in the plan – not “some day”.
When to upgrade
| Signal | What it means |
|---|---|
| Your host announces the end of PHP 7.4 | You have a deadline you did not choose. Migrate before it, not after. |
| A payment or carrier module no longer has a version for 1.7 | You are about to lose a key shop function. |
| You plan a new theme, an ERP integration or new modules | Doing it on 1.7 is work you will repeat after the migration. |
| There has been a security incident | After the clean-up, the old shop is the weakest point. |
Which version: 8 or 9?
If you migrate now, aim for PrestaShop 9. Version 8 is mature, but its recommended PHP has already lost support, so another migration would await you within a year. Version 8.x makes sense as an intermediate step – 1.7 does not run on PHP 8.1 and 9 does not run on PHP 7, so an in-place upgrade goes through 8 – or when a key module has no version for 9 yet. The alternative is a clean install of 9 with a data migration.
The cost of a migration depends mainly on three things: the number of modules, the number of overrides and how much the theme has been modified. You can check that quickly:
# in the shop's root directory
php -v
ls modules | wc -l
find override -name '*.php' ! -name 'index.php' | wc -l
ls themesA shop with a few dozen modules, no overrides and a lightly modified theme is usually a matter of days. A dozen overrides, custom modules and a heavily reworked theme – weeks. What exactly breaks during a migration is covered in a separate guide on migrating from 1.7 to 8 and 9.
Let us estimate your migration
At CodeTheWeb we upgrade shops from PrestaShop 1.7 to 8 and 9 and administer servers for PrestaShop (Plesk, Apache, nginx). We start with a review of modules, overrides and the theme, and then you get a concrete plan: what stays, what we replace and how long it takes.