Research · · 4 min read
PrestaShop versions in France, November 2026: 89% of stores are not on PrestaShop 9
We checked 2,066 PrestaShop stores among the sites people in France visit most. 52% still run 1.7 or older, only 11% are on PrestaShop 9, and most show PHP versions that no longer get security fixes.
PrestaShop 9 has been out for over a year, and PrestaShop 1.7 has not had a release since January 2024. We wanted to know how many real stores have actually moved. So in November 2026 we checked every PrestaShop store we could find among the 100,000 websites people in France visit most.
In short: of 2,066 stores whose version we could tell, 89% are not on PrestaShop 9. 52% still run PrestaShop 1.7 or older, and almost every 1.7 store that shows its PHP version runs PHP 7, which has had no security fixes since 2022.
PrestaShop versions in use
| Version | Stores | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1.6 or older | 167 | 8% |
| 1.7 | 898 | 44% |
| 8 | 775 | 38% |
| 9 | 226 | 11% |
| Total | 2,066 |
PrestaShop 1.7 is still the most common version. There are four 1.7 stores for every store on PrestaShop 9.
Where the exact release is public (142 stores), the most common one is 1.7.8.11, the last 1.7 release, followed by 8.2.8 and 1.6.1.24, the last 1.6 release. So many owners did keep updating, but within their version, not to the next one.
The most visited stores are not ahead
You might expect the biggest stores to upgrade first. They do not:
| Popularity in France (Chrome) | Stores | 1.6 or older | 1.7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 10,000 sites | 153 | 19% | 31% | 43% | 7% |
| 10,000–50,000 | 902 | 8% | 45% | 37% | 10% |
| 50,000–100,000 | 915 | 7% | 44% | 37% | 12% |
Among the stores in the top 10,000, one in five still runs PrestaShop 1.6, and only 7% are on PrestaShop 9. A large store usually has more modules, more custom code and more to lose if the upgrade goes wrong, so it waits longer.
PHP: most stores run versions without security fixes
517 stores show their PHP version in the server headers. Among them:
- PrestaShop 1.7: 220 of 222 run PHP 7.0 to 7.4. PrestaShop 1.7 cannot run on PHP 8, and PHP 7.4 has had no security fixes since November 2022.
- PrestaShop 8: 127 of 183 run PHP 8.1 or older. PrestaShop 8 officially supports PHP up to 8.1, and PHP 8.1 stopped getting security fixes on 31 December 2025. So staying on PrestaShop 8 now also means staying on unsupported PHP.
- PrestaShop 1.6: 20 of 39 still run PHP 5.
Overall, 76% of the stores that show PHP run a version with no security fixes. Stores that hide the header are probably better kept, so the real share is likely lower. But for 1.7 and 1.6 there is no way around it: these versions do not run on any PHP that is still supported. More on the ranges in PrestaShop and PHP versions.
Why upgrades wait: themes and modules
What makes an upgrade slow is rarely PrestaShop itself. It is everything around it:
- Themes: only 7% of 1.7 stores use the default Classic theme. The rest use a commercial or custom theme, or a child theme, and each has to be checked against PrestaShop 9 or replaced.
- Modules: on the home page alone, the median 1.7 or 8 store loads 8 to 9 third-party modules, and 42% of 1.7 stores load 10 or more. Admin-only modules, overrides and custom code come on top of that and cannot be seen from outside.
- Most common third-party modules across all stores: Google Tag Manager (cdc_googletagmanager), the Creative Elements page builder, PayPlug, Chronopost, Advanced Search 4, Brevo (Sendinblue), Société des Avis Garantis and PrestaBlog. Each of them needs a PrestaShop 9 compatible version, and page builders often hold the content of the home page itself. Which of these modules have had security advisories, and how many stores run the fixed version, is in PrestaShop modules with known security issues.
This is why the upgrade from 1.7 is not one click in the back office. What usually breaks, and in which order to go, is in Upgrading to PrestaShop 9 and our 1.7 to 9.2 test upgrade.
How we checked
- Which sites: the Chrome UX Report list of the 100,000 most visited websites from France (September 2026), plus the .fr domains from the Tranco top million list. That is 103,612 sites, of which 2,228 looked like PrestaShop. These are sites people in France actually visit, so they include stores in Belgium or Switzerland and some international ones.
- How: our PrestaShop version check, which reads only public files. The version comes from core JavaScript files that differ between 1.6, 1.7, 8 and 9. The PHP version comes from the
X-Powered-Byheader where the server shows it. Themes and modules come from the home page. - When: 7 November 2026, one visit to each site, identified as
MoonivoStoreCheck/1.0. Sites behind bot protection were skipped, not worked around. - Results: 2,152 stores answered, and the version could be told for 2,066. "1.6 or older" includes any 1.5 stores, because the check does not tell them apart.
- Limits: this is a picture of popular stores, not of every store in France. Small stores are probably on older versions more often, not less. We publish only totals, never individual stores.
What to do if your store is on 1.7 or 8
- Find out where you stand. Our free PrestaShop 9 readiness check is a module that checks the server, the theme and every module, including the ones in the back office, and says what would break on PrestaShop 9.
- Plan the path. From 1.7 you go through 8.2 to 9, on a copy of the store, and move the live store only at the end. PrestaShop 1.7 end of life explains how much time you have.
- Or hand it over. We upgrade stores to PrestaShop 9 for a fixed price from €900, on a copy first, with the exact price before any work starts.
Want to see what a particular store runs? Enter its address in the PrestaShop version check.