Shopware 5: run it securely, meet the new obligations, plan your migration.
Shopware 5 Shopware Shopware is e-commerce software from shopware AG in Schöppingen, Germany; the vendor says its current product, Shopware 6, is a complete redevelopment of Shopware 5. Read in the glossary → has had no support from its vendor since the end of July 2024. Your shop still runs, but nobody takes care of it by default any more. This page brings together everything we've written about Shopware 5: our guides, the key terms, and the shops we run ourselves or support for clients.
Three jobs
What a Shopware 5 shop needs now.
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01
Run it securely
That means applying patches, keeping the shop on a PHP PHP PHP is a widely used, general-purpose, open-source scripting language that is especially suited to web development; the name is a recursive acronym for 'PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor'. version Shopware 5 accepts and making sure that version stays secure, checking plugins and monitoring Monitoring Monitoring is the checking of IT components against defined thresholds, so that a notification or an alarm is triggered when a threshold is reached. Read in the glossary → the shop. Our guide to the end of support covers what a patch subscription does and doesn't do, which hosts still provide security fixes for older PHP versions, and how much risk you take on by carrying on.
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02
Build the new obligations into the code
The vendor, shopware AG, hasn't promised a Shopware 5 update for the new obligations. That leaves the withdrawal button, the legal guarantee notice, the guarantee label and the other changes to be built directly into the shop. Which obligations apply, and from when, is tracked in our merchant radar.
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03
Plan the migration
The switch will come, and it doesn't get cheaper if you put it off until something breaks. We support the move to Shopify Shopify Shopify is a subscription-based commerce platform: merchants either have Shopify host their online shop or build their own shop front on its Storefront API. Read in the glossary → while the shop stays live, with order history and SEO structure SEO SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the work of helping search engines understand a site's content and helping people find the site through search and decide whether to visit it. Read in the glossary → carried over. How we plan, build and migrate shops is set out on our online shops page.
Our Shopware 5 guides
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Guide · E-commerce
Shopware 5 end of life: what it means for a live shop, and your three options
Shopware 5 reached end of life at the end of July 2024. Your shop keeps running, but Shopware no longer ships updates, and the newest PHP version it runs on stops receiving security fixes at the end of 2026. Here is what that means, and how to choose a route.
Read article
References
Shopware shops from our portfolio.
Key terms explained
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EOL
EOL (end of life) is the point at which a vendor or project stops supporting a software version, so that users may be exposed to unpatched security vulnerabilities.
Cross-cutting
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Shopware
Shopware is e-commerce software from shopware AG in Schöppingen, Germany; the vendor says its current product, Shopware 6, is a complete redevelopment of Shopware 5.
E-commerce
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Shopify
Shopify is a subscription-based commerce platform: merchants either have Shopify host their online shop or build their own shop front on its Storefront API.
E-commerce
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Lock-in
Lock-in is a customer's dependence on a supplier that makes it less attractive, or harder, to switch to a different one.
Cross-cutting
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Canonical
A canonical URL is the web address a search engine selects as the most representative of a set of pages with duplicate content; choosing it is called canonicalisation.
E-commerce
Frequently asked questions
What Shopware 5 shop owners ask us.
- What happens to my shop now that support has ended?
- It keeps running, but without official security updates. From then on, what matters is someone actively looking after it: patches, PHP compatibility, monitoring. That's exactly what our maintenance and long-term support covers, and we'll tell you honestly when migration starts paying off more than holding on.
- Which PHP version does Shopware 5 need?
- According to its composer.json, Shopware 5.7.20 accepts only PHP 7.4 to 8.2. Of those versions, php.net lists only PHP 8.2 as still receiving security updates, and only until 31 December 2026. After that, your host has to keep the version secure itself.
- Do you still build new shops on Shopware 5?
- No. Our Shopware 5 work is limited to maintenance and long-term support of existing shops. For new shops we recommend Shopify, and we don't offer Shopware 6.
- Can a migration happen without losing rankings?
- With a plan, yes: stock, order history and SEO structure (URLs, redirects, meta) get carried over cleanly. We migrate live, with rankings kept in view throughout.
- Can you take over an existing Shopware 5 shop?
- Yes. We take over live shops for maintenance, optimisation or a complete rebuild. The first step is an honest look at where things stand.
Need someone to look after your Shopware 5 shop?
We'll keep it running for as long as that pays off for you, build in the new obligations and see you through the switch when the timing is right. It starts with a conversation.