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PrestaShop in 2025: A Transformative Year Unveiled
The year 2025 marked an extraordinary period for PrestaShop, characterized by groundbreaking launches, significant innovations, and a vibrant mobilization across its global community. Join me as we delve into a comprehensive overview of the pivotal moments that shaped this exceptional year for the open-source e-commerce platform.
Keeping Pace: Community Connections Through Live Updates
Throughout 2025, I diligently followed PrestaShop's monthly Live Updates, where the leadership team and dedicated contributors shared the newest advancements with the developer community. The year kicked off on January 29, 2025, with the first Live Update, featuring the highly anticipated announcement of PrestaShop 9 Beta 1 alongside version 8.2.1[1]. This session also introduced the Targeted Contributions initiative, an innovative program designed to guide community efforts toward specific, identified project needs.
The subsequent Live Update on March 5, 2025, offered an in-depth look at the preparations for version 9.0, highlighting the significant reimagining of the Discounts functionality for the upcoming PrestaShop 9.1[2]. Developers received exclusive visual sneak peeks and practical advice for adapting their modules and themes. By April 23, 2025, the April Live Update showcased a live demonstration of Update Assistant v7, the revolutionary successor to the much-loved Auto Upgrade module[3]. This was a critical presentation for both developers and merchants eager to grasp the streamlined update path to PrestaShop 9.
One of the year's most memorable Live Updates occurred on July 30, 2025, presenting the highly anticipated One Page Checkout, a feature poised to transform PrestaShop 9.1[4]. This session also detailed the progress of Hummingbird 2, the modern theme aimed at a more fluid development experience, and officially announced the PrestaShop Developer Conference 2025 scheduled for November.
FOP Days 2025: A Beacon for the PrestaShop Community
I had the privilege of attending FOP Days 2025 on March 26-27, 2025, at Le Nida in Issy-les-Moulineaux, Paris. This third iteration, which began in 2021[5], introduced an enhanced two-day format, complemented by an exclusive evening event. It drew over 180 participants who engaged in some 30 conferences and workshops exploring critical ecosystem topics. The agenda covered everything from AI and automation to security and privacy (PCI DSS), SEO, and digital accessibility. Notable speakers, such as Patrick Valibus, shared insights on managing large-scale e-commerce projects[5]. Supported by 12 esteemed sponsors, the event culminated in the FOP Awards, celebrating achievements in generative AI, security, and privacy protection. Unlike previous years, FOP Days 2025 intentionally omitted video recordings, fostering greater active participation and deeper professional dialogue.
PrestaShop 9.0 Unveiled: A Leap in E-commerce Technology
June 6, 2025, marked a watershed moment with the official release of PrestaShop 9.0, a flagship version anticipated for over two years[6]. I was genuinely impressed by this release, which represented a profound re-engineering of PrestaShop's core, incorporating cutting-edge web development technologies. PrestaShop 9.0 now runs on Symfony 6.4 LTS and PHP 8.4, establishing a foundation that is both more modern and exceptionally robust[7]. This monumental launch impacted over 250,000 online stores powered by PrestaShop, promising significant boosts in performance, security, and overall maintainability.
Key innovations in PrestaShop 9.0 include a new Admin API built on API Platform, enabling cleaner, REST-compliant integrations, a completely reimagined management interface design for enhanced user experience, and crucial native SEO enhancements for merchants. These SEO improvements encompass support for WebP and AVIF image formats, optimized Core Web Vitals (especially Largest Contentful Paint or LCP), and fully customizable URLs, even for faceted filters[8]. Furthermore, PrestaShop 9's refined codebase delivers superior performance with substantially reduced page load times, offering a considerable competitive edge for merchants focused on improving conversion rates.
PrestaShop Day 2025: A Must-Attend for E-commerce Leaders
On June 10, 2025, PrestaShop Day 2025 took place at 3 Mazarium in Paris, hosting an impressive assembly of over 300 merchants, 20 exhibitors, and featuring 14 prominent conferences[9]. This annual gathering, as I observed, centered on three core principles: the freedom of open-source, omnichannel flexibility, and optimized profitability. Discussions ranged from digital sovereignty – a vital topic given the prevalence of proprietary solutions – to effective logistics and delivery strategies, AI management in e-commerce, innovative payment solutions with partners like PayPal, and navigating new European regulatory challenges[10]. The agenda also facilitated over 100 scheduled business meetings between exhibitors and attendees, providing a platform to discover PrestaShop Enterprise, the premium offering tailored for ambitious stores generating millions in revenue[11].
PrestaShop 9: Focused on Stability and Refinement
October 13, 2025, brought the release of PrestaShop 9.0.1, the inaugural maintenance version for the 9.x branch[12]. This update delivered more than 60 bug fixes and incorporated over 140 merged pull requests, with particular attention to resolving installation issues in various environments. PrestaShop 9.0.1 significantly enhanced deployment reliability and overall platform stability, ensuring a smoother experience for its diverse user base. This prompt maintenance release underscored PrestaShop’s dedication to swiftly stabilizing its new technological foundation.
PrestaShop Developer Conference 2025: A Landmark Gathering
The PrestaShop Developer Conference 2025 convened on November 19, 2025, marking the third edition of this pivotal event in the PrestaShop calendar[13]. What truly impressed me was the conference's adoption of a hybrid format for the first time, combining a physical presence in Paris (at Le Cyclone in the 13th arrondissement) with a global online broadcast. A standout innovation was the introduction of automatic subtitles in 35 languages, making highly technical content accessible to a truly international audience. The event featured 28 speakers from over six countries, including representatives from South America, highlighting its global appeal.
The conference was structured with more than 18 presentations spread across two main stages: the Main Stage, dedicated to executive insights and keynotes, and the Tech Room, offering deep-dive technical sessions and practical workshops. The day's major announcement was the launch of the PrestaShop MCP Server, a revolutionary integration of the Model Context Protocol (MCP). This open standard allows PrestaShop stores to seamlessly connect with leading AI agents like ChatGPT, Claude, and Mistral[13][14], signaling a significant strategic shift for PrestaShop regarding AI and automation.
The MCP Server: Empowering E-commerce with AI
Launched on November 19, 2025, the PrestaShop MCP Server represents a pivotal technological advancement for the e-commerce ecosystem[15]. I found this standardized connector, freely available for PrestaShop 8+, absolutely fascinating. It creates a secure bridge between PrestaShop stores and commercial AI agents. The MCP protocol empowers these agents to recognize business entities like products, customers, and orders, and to execute tasks automatically through natural language. Simple commands such as "show me my ten biggest customers this month" or "rewrite all product descriptions marked as ‘declining’" are transformed into concrete back-office actions[15]. This approach champions merchants' data sovereignty while unlocking automation capabilities previously limited to large proprietary platforms.
A Historic Turning Point: The PrestaShop Acquisition
December 11, 2025, brought news of a truly historic event for the PrestaShop ecosystem: CyberFolks and Sylius announced an agreement to acquire PrestaShop, one of the world's largest open-source e-commerce platforms[16]. This strategic acquisition represents a profound shift in the European e-commerce technology landscape. The deal, structured with CyberFolks acquiring 79% of cyber_Pixel (with the remaining 21% held by Sylius founders' family foundations), will enable cyber_Pixel to acquire 100% of PrestaShop, 100% of Sylius, and 100% of BitBag[17]. The total expected sale price for all PrestaShop shares stands at 53.765 million euros.
This merger creates a European e-commerce powerhouse by uniting three complementary business models: Shoper's SaaS model, PrestaShop's open-source model, and Sylius's headless architecture. The new entity's scale is truly impressive: PrestaShop alone serves 230,000 active global stores, generating 22 billion euros in GMV in 2024, while Sylius supports enterprise and mid-market projects accounting for approximately 7 billion euros in annual GMV[18]. Post-merger, the CyberFolks ecosystem is projected to reach approximately 35 billion euros in GMV, solidifying the group's position as Europe's leading e-commerce technology provider. PrestaShop's key markets include France, Spain, Italy, the USA, and the UK, complementing Sylius's focus on France, the USA, Italy, Poland, and Germany, thereby establishing extensive and synergistic geographical coverage[19].
Crucially, this acquisition secures the long-term viability of the PrestaShop project while safeguarding its open-source ethos – a vital point for its dedicated developer and merchant communities. It also unlocks new avenues for innovation by merging PrestaShop’s expertise in accessible e-commerce solutions with Sylius’s enterprise capabilities and Shoper’s SaaS strategy, offering a comprehensive portfolio across all market segments.
2025's Core Themes: AI, Sovereignty, and Modernization
Looking back at 2025, three overarching themes consistently emerged across all events. Firstly, the ascension of artificial intelligence was evident through the MCP Server announcement, discussions on business process automation, and explorations of AI agents in the payment ecosystem. Secondly, digital sovereignty became a central discussion point at both PrestaShop Day and FOP Days, delivering a clear message to merchants: reassert control over their data and technological infrastructure, moving away from restrictive proprietary solutions. Thirdly, technological modernization truly took hold with the launch of PrestaShop 9.0, the introduction of Hummingbird 2.0, enhancements to the update system, and the continuous evolution of the Admin API. Together, these advancements are progressively transforming PrestaShop into a genuinely modern platform, fully equipped to tackle contemporary e-commerce challenges.
In essence, 2025 was a landmark year for PrestaShop. It saw the launch of a groundbreaking major version, the announcement of a revolutionary AI integration, a historic acquisition by CyberFolks and Sylius, and the significant strengthening of its developer and merchant communities through impactful events. These achievements firmly establish PrestaShop as a modern, digitally sovereign, and future-proof e-commerce solution, poised to compete with major market players while fiercely preserving its open-source values of openness and flexibility.
Citations
[1] PrestaShop Project Live Update - January 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JljSmYH-vdg?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[2] PrestaShop Live Update - March 2025 https://build.prestashop-project.org/news/2025/live-update-march-2025/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[3] PrestaShop Live Update - April 2025 https://build.prestashop-project.org/news/2025/live-update-april-2025/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[4] PrestaShop Live Update - July 2025 https://build.prestashop-project.org/news/2025/live-update-july-2025/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[5] FOP Days : l’événement de la communauté PrestaShop https://friendsofpresta.org/friends-of-presta-day-fop-day/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[6] PrestaShop 9: What’s New in the 2025 Upgrade https://belvg.com/blog/prestashop-9-why-this-upgrade-matters-more-than-you-think.html
[7] PrestaShop 9: new, more robust and modern version https://prestashop.com/prestashop9/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[8] PrestaShop 9.0 : nouveautés, migration, et conseils experts https://lorispinna.com/blog/dev/prestashop-9-nouveautes-migration-performances/
[9] PrestaShop Day 2025 https://www.202-ecommerce.com/ressources/evenements/prestashop-day-2025/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[10] PrestaShop Day 2025 : la rencontre incontournable … - Fevad https://www.fevad.com/prestashop-day-2025-la-rencontre-incontournable-des-professionnels-du-e-commerce/
[11] Le PrestaShop Day 2025 en 5 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQEWzDVywZ8?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[12] PrestaShop 9.0.1 is available https://build.prestashop-project.org/news/2025/prestashop-9-0-1-maintenance-release/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[13] PrestaShop Developer Conference 2025 - Event Recap https://build.prestashop-project.org/news/2025/prestashop-developer-conference-2025-event-recap/?utm_source=devTo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Complete%20Retrospective%20of%20PrestaShop%20Events%202025
[14] PrestaShop MCP : quand l’IA conversationnelle transforme … https://www.cibleweb.com/2025/11/21/prestashop-mcp-lia-conversationnelle-transforme-la-gestion-e-commerce-1028264348
[15] PrestaShop lance son serveur MCP et connecte l’IA au … https://itsocial.fr/intelligence-artificielle/intelligence-artificielle-actualites/prestashop-lance-son-serveur-mcp-et-connecte-lia-au-back-office/
[16] cyber_Folks i Sylius przejmą platformę dla e-commerce PrestaShop https://pl.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/cyberfolks-i-sylius-przejma-platforme-dla-ecommerce-prestashop-1206137
[17] Grupa cyber_Folks podpisała porozumienia dotyczące nabycia PrestaShop https://strefainwestorow.pl/wiadomosci/20251211/grupa-cyberfolks-podpisala-porozumienia-dotyczace-nabycia-prestashop-opis
[18] Cyber_Folks signs term sheet with MBE Worldwide to acquire 100% stake in Prestashop https://www.marketscreener.com/news/cyberfolks-signs-term-sheet-with-mbe-worldwide-to-acquire-100-stake-in-prestashop-ce7d50dbd989f625
[19] cyber_Folks staje się najpotężniejszym europejskim dostawcą technologii e-commerce https://strefainwestorow.pl/wiadomosci/20251211/cyberfolks-staje-sie-najpotezniejszym-europejskim-dostawca-technologii-e
This article was published on January 1, 2026.
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