When will PrestaShop end?

[Yabber]

Since the release of that horribly unsuccessful version 1.7, there has been a mass escape of stores from PrestaShop. On average, over 20 thousand stores are disappearing each month.
I think that in a year no one will know what PrestaShop was.

[vincentdenkspel]

Looks like the stock value of Tesla

[musicmaster]

Prestashop 1.7 was released in november 2016. The fall in users is much more recent. I see two potential reasons:

 - since 2021 Prestashop is owned by an Italian firm, MBE Worldwide. As a consequence the project is now split between an opensource project and the corporation. It now is released in two versions: the opensource version - only available on Github - and the "Edition Basic" that is available on their website prestashop.com. The problem is that the "Edition basic" contains a dozen extra modules that add nothing in shopping functionality but tend to make the software less stable.

 - In the last year they have made it increasingly hard to install Prestashop under Windows with Xampp or similar programs. It is now almost impossible (once installed running is no problem). This may also be a consequence of the increased influence of volunteers on the project. These tend to be Linux nerds who look down on Windows. They forget that Windows is often the first place where try out Prestashop.

Edited April 25 by musicmaster

[the.rampage.rado]

1 hour ago, musicmaster said:

Prestashop 1.7 was released in november 2016. The fall in users is much more recent. I see two potential reasons:

 - since 2021 Prestashop is owned by an Italian firm, MBE Worldwide. As a consequence the project is now split between an opensource project and the corporation. It now is released in two versions: the opensource version - only available on Github - and the "Edition Basic" that is available on their website prestashop.com. The problem is that the "Edition basic" contains a dozen extra modules that add nothing in shopping functionality but tend to make the software less stable.

 - In the last year they have made it increasingly hard to install Prestashop under Windows with Xampp or similar programs. It is now almost impossible (once installed running is no problem). This may also be a consequence of the increased influence of volunteers on the project. These tend to be Linux nerds who look down on Windows. They forget that Windows is often the first place where try out Prestashop.

Ahhh... who is installing CMSes locally to test? 🙄

There are still plenty of PS1.6 users we should try and show them that thirty bees is the way forward. Those on 1.7 or later are lost cause, they would not want to hear about the platform ever again.

[musicmaster]

I get the impression that Prestashop is increasingly targeting big companies and is getting less interested in the small outfits.

That could open an opportunity for Thirty Bees.

Recently I encountered this article. It is about a Dutch company that makes themes and other parts for Magento, specifically targeting parts that Magento considers less attractive.

It is kind of what to me seems a logical future for Thirty Bees. It wouldn't be hard to stay compatible with Prestashop regarding the business data of the database. That way you can offer a very easy migration between Prestashop and Thirty Bees - both ways. The business data changes very slow. Almost all the "innovation" at Prestashop concerns Symfony adaptations. 

[wakabayashi]

Thirty bees is still alive, that is the only thing that counts for me 😊 A lot of great things are going on github. It would be wishful, if we could clone Datakick somewow, but might be difficult 🫠

[veganline]

I guess there was a lot more competition in the hosted ecommerce market after a well known DIY website builder decided to launch an ecommerce version about 2023. Maybe a lot of Prestashop's hosted customers looked-around and saw something better. Maybe the other providers were sending them special offers?

Thinking of which, I don't know of any hosted version of Thirtybees under any brand at all. Maybe that's a business for someone. If so I hope they promote other applications of this software and don't know if there is a way to encourage them to do it.

Edited June 8 by veganline
Added the question

[Kenneth Ong]

At this rate, 1.7 might go down in history as the software equivalent of New Coke. Who greenlit that mess?

[metacreo]

PrestaShop as is ended already. Ending started from 1.7 version and ended from 8 ver. 
Since version 1.6 there have been attempts to hang third-party software on the engine.
Well, with version 1.7 the practical use of third-party software began.
Version 8 is a set of bulky frameworks. Their ObjectModel is already deprecated. In short, this is no longer PrestaShop. It is a constructor of various frameworks.

Slowness and discomfort for both the admin and the client, and all this even on dedicated powerful servers.

Marketing rules there, dictating its own rules and using the brand Prestashop to the maximum.

This 8 prestashop works great under the following conditions:
No more than 100 customers. 🙂
No more than 200 orders. 😁
No more than 5 - 10 clients creating wild traffic. 😊
All modules must be disabled, especially shipping modules 😄

All problems with going beyond these limits cannot be repeated by ps QA, which means they do not exist. 🙂

Throw away prestashop. ThirtyBees is a real prestashop using a wonderful, simple and fast ObjectModel.

[Daresh]

From a developer’s perspective, I can say that working with PrestaShop since version 1.7.8 has been a very good experience. A large number of new hooks have been added, which allow me to create modules for my clients in a clean way — without overrides, and without modifying the template or the core engine.

When developing a module for the general market, I try to provide support for version 1.6 and ThirtyBees as well, but it's not always possible to do so in a clean and maintainable way.

On the other hand, the complexity of PrestaShop's code has increased significantly — as if it were being developed primarily for tech-savvy users rather than for merchants in the first place. I see many flaws in the project, and I’m not surprised it might be losing market share. Nevertheless, I’m still able to build a wide variety of stores on this platform and efficiently add new features to them as needed.

Another important factor is support from couriers and payment gateways. Many of our local Polish companies develop their modules exclusively for PrestaShop, often only for version 1.7. That’s why clients who come to us tend to choose PrestaShop and ask us to build their stores using this software.

[the.rampage.rado]

That's true @Daresh. It is awesome that you support thirty bees in the majority of your modules and the community is really grateful as they are unique work that really adds value to any thirty bees shop.

 It would be awesome if we can spread the word about thirty bees and the project positive sides locally. At every occasion I have I try to do so in Bulgaria.

Regarding the additional hooks and core development that will come handy in your work - the community will be very thankful if you can support the project with code @ https://github.com/thirtybees/thirtybees that you find useful! Cheers!