PrestaShop 1.6 vs 1.7 - Why you should upgrade to the latest version of PrestaShop?

If you’re a PrestaShop store owner, it’s normal to be interested in the new PrestaShop 1.7 version. You have a plan to move from PrestaShop 1.6 to the latest release however not certain about the additional benefits the new version offers. In this article, we will look at the differences between PrestaShop 1.6 and PrestaShop 1.7 in order to figure out what we’re in for. With this, you can easily make the right decision. Let’s find out!

Helping Users

The primary goal of the PrestaShop 1.7 developers is to help users with the task of overcoming the sometimes daunting challenges that are inherent when they build and launch their online business. The highlight features were designed specifically for allowing all PrestaShop 1.7 users with delivering more high-quality website content and transferring it much faster.

An Overview Of PrestaShop 1.7

PrestaShop 1.7 is a new version of the famous PrestaShop e-commerce platform that is opening the way to an all-new and innovative method of creating, developing, and selling online. It is a large-scale step forward from PrestaShop 1.6 and offers various extra features and progressive changes, including:

• Re-organized main menu
• New product creation page
• Fully rebuilt theme system
• Reworked modules page
• Symfony Framework

What’s New in PrestaShop 1.7

The PrestaShop developer team worked throughout 2016 on the development of this new version, bringing about several new features and powerful improvements, and they are:

Symfony framework implement

The new standards and tools that are integrated into PrestaShop 1.7 include the cutting-edge Symfony framework for the purpose of improving code security and overall website performance. This combination is especially significant because it provides an open-source framework to enable more efficient coding by developers while benefiting from a framework that is recognized globally.

Easier Creating

Your website’s user experience is a convincing strategy for creating a positive online brand experience that can assist you in generating more loyalty and converting more visitors into new customers. With PrestaShop 1.7, both theme designers and front-end developers will find a new Starter Theme that is free from any custom style or markups and will be successfully empowering the fast building of truly incredible templates.

Faster Selling

Completely redesigned modules and product pages make the addition of new products, as well as module and catalog management less time-consuming and effort-intensive. Furthermore, the fixed check-out process will be a major enhancement in the shopping experience of customers. What’s more, the simplification of both front and back-office systems will make selling considerably faster.

Why is PrestaShop 1.7 better than version 1.6?

PrestaShop 1.7 is the 7th major PrestaShop release. It is also available in 25 languages. Below are some of the main improvements over the previous versions:

“Create a product” page

“Create a product” page is now having a new interface, faster action speed, better shortcuts, and a new method to add products to a category. Moreover, automatic management has been rebuilt to showcase the top relevant features and allow merchants to perform this task faster than before.

Back office navigation

Rebuild the back office has brought a greatly improved UI/UX experience, which makes browsing easier. Rearranging the navigation menu did make organizing the back office simpler for configuring and selling.

Modules page

A big change in the modules page means better daily management of the modules. New tabs allow for easier navigation between sections, making viewing installed modules simpler, as well as managing those waiting for an action and discovering some that could prove beneficial to your business.

Default theme

The brand new default theme is called “Classic”. It will bring a fresher look to your store, as well as enable you to begin selling in no time at all. One more thing, the product sheet has been greatly improved while the checkout process has been completely modified to provide a better shopping experience.

Install PrestaShop 1.7

Are you impressed by the new features of PrestaShop 1.7? Before navigating to PrestaShop's official site and downloading the latest release of this e-commerce platform, let’s spend some minutes learning how to install PrestaShop 1.7 into your online store.

Step 1: Download the latest PrestaShop and upload it to your server

• Visit https://www.prestashop.com/en/download and download PrestaShop's newest version to your computer.

• Extract the .zip file locally on your computer.
• Open the extracted folder that includes “prestashop.zip” file. Upload this file to your server through cPanel’s File Manager or using an FTP client.

Note: The uploaded package should be placed under the “public_html” directory, which is the web root folder for your account, or alternatively under a subdirectory of it. When you finished uploading the archive, extract it there.

Step 2: Create a new database

You should create a database to run the PrestaShop setup wizard.

From the cPanel dashboard, select MySQL Database (if you're using Cpanel). If your server has PHPMyAdmin, use it to create a new database.

Step 3: Run PrestaShop 1.7 Installation wizard

Open http://your-website.com in a browser and the wizard will guide you through the setup process. Firstly, you need to choose the language you want to use for your store. This will also set the default language for your PrestaShop installation. The other languages will also be available for you later.

Read the terms and conditions and agree with them.

System compatibility: A quick check of all server parameters.

Store information: Now you can start customizing your shop. Give it a name, point out its main activity and the personal information of the owner.

Fill in the blank with the database connection info: database server address, database name, login account, and tables prefix. When you’re ready, click the “Next” button to proceed.

The wizard will create the necessary tables and set up the store.

And we get a page like this: 

Step 4: Delete the install folder & archive file

For security purposes, you need to delete the “install” folder inside the PrestaShop 1.7 installation folder and .zip archive file.

Upgrade to the latest version of PrestaShop 1.7

If you are already owning a PrestaShop online store that runs PrestaShop 1.6 and you want to upgrade your store to the latest version of PrestaShop instead of migrating all data to a new website, we have a solution for you!

Direct Upgrade is our unique module that allows you to directly upgrade PrestaShop 1.5 and PrestaShop 1.6 to 1.7 while preserving all data including products, orders, customers, passwords, etc. It takes advantage of “piece by piece” technology to split the upgrade process into very small pieces of work, to make sure the upgrade process runs smoothly on any server even if the server resource is very limited (low RAM, low CPU, limited max-execution-time, etc.)

Direct Upgrade is a fast, stable, reliable, and secure upgrade tool to upgrade PrestaShop to 1.7. And we guarantee that you would get a 100% refund if no success when using this module!