Shopware 5 has been discontinued since July 31, 2024. Moving to Shopware 6 isn’t an update, it’s a project: the process in six phases, timeline, costs by store size, and the mistakes that cost you rankings and budget.
Shopware 5 has been discontinued since July 31, 2024. There are no more regular security updates, and every additional month on Shopware 5 increases the risk and the effort of switching.
A Shopware migration isn’t an update, it’s a new store project. You install Shopware 6.7 from scratch and transfer products, categories, customers, orders, and media with the free Migration Assistant. The theme, plugins, shopping worlds, and email templates are rebuilt.
Expect 6 to 10 weeks and about €20,000 for a small store, and 3 to 6 months and €40,000 to €120,000 for a mid-sized store with integrations and custom plugins.
Before founding solution25, we built our own online store and grew it to more than 500 orders per day. Since 2017, we’ve been delivering Shopware projects, and migrations from Shopware 5 have been among our most common projects for years.
If you’re still selling on Shopware 5 today, you’re running a store without regular security support, and you should switch before a security vulnerability decides the timing for you. This article is for store owners and ecommerce managers who are responsible for a Shopware 5 store and are preparing the move to Shopware 6.
After reading it, you’ll be able to realistically estimate the effort, timeline, and budget of your migration, decide between a 1:1 migration, a relaunch, and a rebuild, and evaluate proposals with confidence. All prices as of October 2026, excluding VAT.
Shopware stopped developing Shopware 5 at the end of July 2024. Since then, according to the official end-of-life documentation, there have been no proactive security updates, only reactive help for customers with an active contract.
Technically, the store keeps running. But every newly discovered vulnerability in the core, in PHP libraries, or in payment plugins stays open until someone patches it by hand. On top of that, plugin vendors and payment providers are gradually discontinuing their Shopware 5 versions.
| Version | Released | Status in October 2026 | Security updates until |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopware 5.7 | May 2021 | Discontinued | July 31, 2024 |
| Shopware 6.5 | May 2023 | Security updates only | February 28, 2027 |
| Shopware 6.6 | March 2024 | Extended support | February 28, 2028 |
| Shopware 6.7 | June 2025 | Current version, active development | Open, at least until 6.8 is released |
| Shopware 6.8 | Planned for 2027 | Announced | Not yet determined |
The data comes from endoflife.date and Shopware’s announcements. In November 2025, Shopware postponed the next major version, 6.8, to 2027. If you migrate now, you’ll land on Shopware 6.7 and have at least a year of peace before the next version jump.
For merchants who can’t make the switch right away, safefive, an initiative independent of Shopware, offers a paid subscription with security patches for Shopware 5.5 to 5.7.20. The corresponding plugin in the Shopware Store is free, the contract runs through safefive, and pricing is based on revenue.
It’s a bridge, not a replacement: you won’t get new features or current plugin versions there.
Shopware 6 was released in early 2020 as a complete rewrite. It shares its name and vendor with Shopware 5, but not its database structure, template system, or plugin interface. That’s why there’s no update button, but a new installation that the data is transferred into.
That’s a lot of work, but it’s also an opportunity to get rid of legacy baggage: unused plugins, categories without products, customer accounts without an order in years. In return, you get a system with ongoing security updates, with Rule Builder and Flow Builder for rules without coding, and with APIs for connecting inventory management (ERP), product information management (PIM), and marketplaces.
Shopware provides two free extensions. The Migration Connector is installed in the Shopware 5 store and supports versions 5.4.0 to 5.7.20. The Migration Assistant runs in the new Shopware 6 and pulls the data through the connector’s API, or directly from the database if both systems are on the same server.
The connector adds the “Shopware 6 Update Check” menu item to the Shopware 5 backend. It checks whether the server meets the Shopware 6 requirements and which plugins have a Shopware 6 version.
The connection between the two stores remains until you delete it. The Shopware migration guide puts it this way: “As long as this connection to your Shopware 5 store exists, you can migrate data from the Shopware 5 store at any time.” That’s the basis for the delta migration shortly before go-live.
| Data group | Includes | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Basic data (required) | Categories, customer groups, currencies, sales channels, number ranges | Transferred |
| Products | Products, variants, properties, translations, cross-selling | Transferred |
| Customers and orders | Customers, orders, order documents, shipping methods | Transferred |
| Media | Product and category images and other media files | Transferred, downloaded in a separate step |
| SEO URLs, reviews, promotions | SEO URLs for products and categories, product reviews, discounts and promotions | Transferred, review needed |
| Payment methods, salutations, delivery times | Must be created in Shopware 6 beforehand | Manual mapping (premapping) |
| Shipping costs | Rules and prices | Not transferred, set up from scratch |
| Theme, plugins, shopping worlds, email templates, B2B Suite | Design, extensions, content pages, templates, B2B data | Not transferred, rebuild required |
This is based on the “What is migrated from Shopware 5 to 6” page in the Shopware documentation. On B2B, it’s unambiguous: “Transferring data from the Shopware 5 B2B Suite to Shopware 6 is not possible.”
The first concrete step in any migration is a list of all plugins with four columns: what does it do, who uses it, is there a successor for Shopware 6, and what does it cost. In our projects, a third to half of the plugins get dropped after that.
A customized default theme with logo, colors, fonts, and some template adjustments costs €5,000 to €10,000 and is enough for many small and mid-sized stores. A custom design with a prototype and custom components runs €15,000 to €30,000.
One argument for jumping straight to Shopware 6.7: since June 28, 2025, the German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG, Germany’s implementation of the European Accessibility Act) applies to online stores, and according to the release announcement, 6.7 ships with accessible templates and semantic HTML by default. The theme and content still need to be checked.
Before the project, create a list of all shopping worlds and store pages with their page views from the last twelve months. Anything without traffic doesn’t get rebuilt. For the rest, texts and images are exported and recreated as Shopping Experiences.
The cost of data migration depends less on the amount of data than on its quality. A store with 50,000 clean products migrates faster than one with 5,000 products, duplicate SKUs, and three spellings for the same color.
Our guide Preparing product data for Shopware 6 explains how to structure product data before it lands in Shopware 6. Backups, responsibilities, and timeline are covered in the migration preparation checklist.
The biggest revenue loss in migrations doesn’t come from missing data, but from lost rankings. Ten years of links and rankings can disappear in a week if the old URLs lead nowhere.
The full process with mapping patterns and a test plan is covered in SEO for platform migrations.
The old store keeps running throughout the entire project. The new one is built in parallel in a staging environment, and the domain is only switched on go-live day. The durations are based on experience from our projects, and the phases overlap.
| Phase | Scope | Small store | Mid-sized |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Analysis and concept | Plugin inventory, data analysis, target picture, hosting, proposal | 1 week | 2 to 3 weeks |
| 2. Setup | Installing Shopware 6.7, basic configuration, creating payment methods, salutations, and delivery times, installing plugins | 1 week | 2 to 4 weeks |
| 3. First data migration | Connection, premapping, full run, error log, record comparison | 1 week | 2 to 3 weeks |
| 4. Theme, Shopping Experiences, extensions | Theme, content, plugin replacements, custom development, integrations | 2 to 4 weeks | 6 to 10 weeks |
| 5. Testing and SEO | Test orders per payment method, integrations, redirects, performance, accessibility | 1 week | 2 to 4 weeks |
| 6. Go-live and hypercare | Content freeze, delta migration, switchover, post-launch support | 1 week plus 2 weeks of hypercare | 1 week plus 4 weeks of hypercare |
| Total | 6 to 10 weeks | 3 to 6 months |
B2B stores with a customer portal and customer-specific price lists take 6 to 12 months, because the B2B Suite from Shopware 5 isn’t carried over and the processes are rebuilt with the B2B Components or custom extensions.
According to the Update Guide for Shopware 6.7, the new system needs PHP 8.2, 8.3, or 8.4, MySQL 8.0.17 or later or MariaDB 10.11 or later, Node.js version 20 or later, and optionally Redis 7.0 or later. A server that runs Shopware 5 with PHP 7.4 today usually isn’t suitable. What matters when choosing a server is covered in Shopware Hosting.
For the vape brands VaporFi, South Beach Smoke, and VaporBeast, we moved three stores with their own infrastructure and their own plugins into a shared Shopware 6 environment. The starting point was Magento 2, not Shopware 5, but the tasks are the same as in any larger migration.
The details are in the project report on migrating the three vape stores. Applied to Shopware 5, that means: success depends on the plugin inventory, staged data runs with review, and complete URL mapping, not on the assistant alone.
The cost of a migration is in the same ballpark as a rebuild with Shopware 6. The assistant saves you manual data entry, not the work on theme, plugins, integrations, and testing. The following ranges are based on experience from our projects.
| Store type | Scope | Budget | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small store | Up to about 2,000 products, customized default theme, store plugins, no integrations, one language | €20,000 to €35,000 | 6 to 10 weeks |
| Mid-sized | Custom design, ERP integration, custom plugins, multiple languages or sales channels | €40,000 to €120,000 | 3 to 6 months |
| B2B and enterprise | Replacing the B2B Suite, customer-specific pricing, customer portal, PIM, complex integrations | From €120,000 | 6 to 12 months |
| Item | Small store | Mid-sized with ERP |
|---|---|---|
| Analysis, concept, plugin inventory | €1,500 | €5,000 |
| Data migration and cleanup | €4,000 | €10,000 |
| Theme and Shopping Experiences | €6,000 | €20,000 |
| Replacing and developing plugins | €4,000 | €20,000 |
| ERP integration | €0 | €15,000 |
| SEO, testing, go-live, training | €4,500 | €10,000 |
| Total | €20,000 | €80,000 |
On top of that come the ongoing costs of the new store: hosting for €50 to €500 per month, subscription licenses for plugins, and maintenance. The Shopware license stays free with the Community Edition until gross merchandise volume exceeds €1 million in 365 days. According to Shopware’s pricing page, Rise starts at €600 and Evolve at €2,400 per month. We’ve broken down all operating costs in our article Shopware Pricing 2026.
According to Shopware, existing subscriptions are credited when you switch, so you don’t pay double license fees. Clarify this with Shopware sales before the project starts.
Figure: Data migration accounts for only one eighth of the sample budget; if you’re planning a migration, focus on theme, plugins, and integrations. Based on solution25 experience from migration projects, sample budget mid-sized with ERP, as of October 2026
Three options have proven themselves, plus a temporary solution for merchants who can’t switch yet.
| Option | Approach | Best for | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:1 migration | Transfer data, default theme in the look of the old store, replace plugins with built-in features and store plugins | Stores that perform well and need to get off Shopware 5 quickly | €20,000 to €40,000 |
| Migration with relaunch | Transfer data, new design, new processes and integrations | Stores with an outdated design, weak conversion, or plugin sprawl | €40,000 to €120,000 |
| Rebuild with partial transfer | Only transfer customers and orders, rebuild product data from PIM or ERP | Stores with poor product data, a new product range, or a move into B2B | Same as relaunch, plus PIM |
| Keep Shopware 5 | Security patches through safefive, no further development | Only as a bridge of a few months until the project starts | Subscription based on revenue |
Three questions are enough for an initial assessment before you request proposals.
Our take: For most Shopware 5 stores, we recommend a 1:1 migration and a relaunch only a few months after go-live. That way, the store is quickly back on a supported version, and design decisions are based on data from the new system instead of guesswork. Combining migration and relaunch in one project only pays off if design or conversion has been the real problem for years anyway.
The detailed version with all configuration points is our Shopware pre-go-live checklist.
Whether the migration succeeded becomes clear in the first eight weeks. Check the numbers daily for the first two weeks and weekly after that, each compared to the period before the switch.
| Metric | Tool | Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Organic clicks | Google Search Console | Minus 5 to 10% in the first week is normal, a lasting drop of 20% is a problem |
| 404 errors | Search Console, crawlers like Screaming Frog | No 404s for the 100 most important old URLs, redirect new 404s within one day |
| Conversion rate | Google Analytics 4 | No more than 10% below the previous period |
| Load time | PageSpeed Insights | LCP (load time of the largest element) up to 2.5 seconds, INP (responsiveness) up to 200 milliseconds, CLS (layout shift) up to 0.1 |
| Data sync | ERP and order overview | Orders and inventory match every day |
You should make adjustments if clicks are still 20% below the previous period after four weeks, the conversion rate drops two weeks in a row, or 404 errors aren’t decreasing. Click and conversion values are based on experience from our projects. The load time thresholds come from Google.
Our article on failed Shopware 6 migrations explains why these mistakes get expensive.
Not at all on a regular basis. Shopware stopped development at the end of July 2024, and according to endoflife.date, security support for Shopware 5.7 ended on July 31, 2024. Customers with an active contract receive reactive help, and security patches are only available through the paid safefive subscription.
Technically yes, the store keeps running, but without security updates, and plugin vendors and payment providers are gradually ending support. As a bridge of a few months with safefive, that’s acceptable, but not as a permanent state.
Shopware 6 is a complete rewrite based on Symfony, Twig, and Vue.js with an API-first architecture. Shopping worlds are replaced by Shopping Experiences, subshops by sales channels, plus there’s Rule Builder and Flow Builder for rules without coding. Plugins, themes, and database structure aren’t compatible, which is why the switch is a migration.
A small store with a default theme and few plugins needs 6 to 10 weeks. A mid-sized store with a custom design, ERP integration, and custom plugins takes 3 to 6 months, and B2B projects 6 to 12 months. The old store keeps running during this time.
The license costs €0 for the Community Edition, from €600 per month for Rise, and from €2,400 per month for Evolve. Beyond is quoted individually. The migration to Shopware 6 itself costs about €20,000 for small stores and €40,000 to €120,000 for mid-sized stores, plus hosting, plugins, and maintenance.
Shopware 7 hasn’t been announced. Shopware continues to release major versions within the 6.x line. The next one is 6.8, which Shopware postponed to 2027 in November 2025.
It depends on your business model. Shopify gets you live faster and is cheaper to start with. Shopware is more flexible, doesn’t take a commission per order, and is significantly stronger in B2B. If you’re coming from Shopware 5 and have your own processes, integrations, or lots of variants, Shopware 6 is usually the better fit.
Send us the result of the update check or your plugin list through our contact page. We’ll review plugins, data, and integrations and give you the effort, timeline, and budget for your migration. How we approach this is described on our service page for migrating from Shopware 5 to 6.
Our free store audit also shows where your Shopware 5 store is leaving revenue on the table today and which points belong in the migration project.
Besnik Bilalli is the founder and CEO of solution25, the Shopware agency based in Bremen. Before founding the agency in 2017, he built his own online store and grew it to more than 500 orders per day. Since then, he has supported merchants with Shopware projects, from the first cost estimate to ongoing operations. He’s happy to answer questions about this article personally: Get in touch.
Responsible for content and updates: Besnik Bilalli. Last updated: October 2026. Next content review: January 2027.
