PrestaShop Hosting

What is PrestaShop hosting and how does it differ from OpenCart?

PrestaShop hosting is a hosting service tuned for running a shop that meets the PHP, database and memory requirements of the PrestaShop e-commerce platform. PrestaShop is an open-source, licence-free e-commerce platform that is widespread in Europe and has thousands of modules. Its back office runs on the Symfony framework, while the storefront uses the Smarty template engine.

This architecture makes PrestaShop richer than OpenCart, but also hungrier for resources. Product combinations (size, colour), advanced stock management, multi-store, customer groups and price rules come in the core; in return, the back office needs more memory and cache settings decide performance. A badly configured PrestaShop store can load several times slower than a well-configured one on the same hosting.

LIONFIN web hosting plans offer NVMe storage, free SSL, daily backups and a one-click app installer, with the PHP extensions PrestaShop needs already enabled. If you are looking for leaner store software, have a look at OpenCart hosting as well.

What are the PrestaShop 9 system requirements?

PrestaShop 9 requires PHP 8.1 or newer, MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.2 or newer, an Apache 2.4 or Nginx web server and a PHP memory limit of at least 512 MB. The official PrestaShop 8 documentation recommended a 256 MB memory limit, but PrestaShop 9 has raised this value; do not trust the figures in older guides.

To see whether your server meets these values, upload PrestaShop’s official phppsinfo.php script to the store folder and open it in a browser; delete the file when you are done. In cPanel you can raise the memory limit from the MultiPHP INI Editor screen.

Should you use PrestaShop 8 or PrestaShop 9?

Choose PrestaShop 9 for new stores; migrate an existing PrestaShop 8 store only after PrestaShop 9-compatible versions of your payment, shipping and theme modules have been released. PrestaShop 9 has moved to a newer Symfony version and dropped support for anything below PHP 8.1, which means better performance and a longer support window.

The technical burden of the migration is mostly in the modules, not the core:

• Module compatibility: Pages added to the back office use Symfony components, so older modules may throw errors on PrestaShop 9.
• Theme: Classic-based themes usually work with minor adjustments; heavily customised themes need testing.
• Override files: Files in the override folder that override core classes are the first thing to break during a version upgrade.

You can upgrade with the official update module (Update Assistant), but try it first on a copy on a subdomain, not directly on the live store. To create the copy, move the files and database to a new folder, then update the database details in app/config/parameters.php and the shop domain in the back office. Once testing is complete, repeat the same steps on the live store at a low-traffic hour.

How do you install and localise PrestaShop?

You can install PrestaShop with the plan’s one-click app installer, or by uploading the official zip package to public_html and running the installation wizard in your browser. For a manual installation, create the database in the panel beforehand and delete the install folder afterwards. During installation PrestaShop renames the admin folder to a random name (for example admin482xyz); write this address down.

After installation, configure these settings for the market you sell to:

1. Import the localisation pack for your country from International → Localization; language, currency, tax rules and units arrive in one go.
2. Check the VAT rules for your product groups under International → Taxes.
3. Define your carriers and zone-based shipping fees under Shipping → Carriers.
4. On the Advanced Parameters → E-mail screen, set the sending method to SMTP and use port 465 or 587 with an email account on your domain; complete your domain’s DKIM and SPF records.
5. For checkout, choose a payment module that uses a hosted 3D Secure payment page so card data never touches your server.

If you activate the SSL certificate before setting up the store, enabling SSL on all pages under Shop Parameters → General becomes a one-click task.

How should PrestaShop performance settings be configured?

The biggest speed gain in PrestaShop comes from four settings on the Advanced Parameters → Performance screen: setting Smarty template compilation to “Never recompile template files”, turning on the Smarty cache, enabling “Combine, Compress and Cache” (CCC) for CSS and JavaScript, and switching off debug mode. Left on from development, these settings multiply page generation time on a live store.

• Template compilation: Once theme development is finished, choose “Never recompile”; clear the cache from the same screen whenever you change files.
• CCC: Combined and compressed files reduce the number of requests. After enabling it, check the storefront for visual glitches.
• Unused modules: On the Modules → Module Manager screen, uninstall modules you do not need rather than just disabling them; every active module adds hooks to page loads.
• Statistics modules: Visitor-statistics modules write to the database on every page view; turn them off if you use an external analytics tool.
• PHP: Use the newest PHP 8 version your modules support, together with OPcache.

The NVMe disks in the LIONFIN infrastructure speed up reading the Smarty cache and tens of thousands of product images.

How do you manage the database and layered navigation in a large catalogue?

In large PrestaShop catalogues, slowness has two main sources: the indexes of the layered navigation (faceted search) module, and statistics and connection tables that swell over time. Both strain the database and lengthen the response time of category pages.

The layered navigation module (ps_facetedsearch) keeps its own index tables to serve price and feature filters quickly. These indexes must be rebuilt after bulk product imports or price updates. Running the indexing URLs provided in the module settings as a cron job at night removes the heavy indexing jobs that administrators would otherwise trigger by hand during the day.

Tables that store connections, visitors and not-found pages can grow to millions of rows within months. If you do not use the statistics modules, turn them off; if you do, clean out old records periodically. Always take a database backup before doing so.

Once products and combinations exceed tens of thousands, the database’s own memory, query cache and disk write speed become decisive. At that point a VDS where you can tune MariaDB for your store makes a clear difference compared with the fixed settings of a shared environment.

How do you keep a PrestaShop store secure?

The most important step in keeping a PrestaShop store secure is keeping modules up to date and following the security advisories PrestaShop publishes. Most serious vulnerabilities reported in recent years were not in the core but in SQL injection and file upload flaws in third-party modules.

• Module inventory: Keep a list of installed modules; remove any that are abandoned or come from pirated sources.
• Employee profiles: Under Advanced Parameters → Team, create staff profiles that can access only the menus they need; do not share the administrator account.
• Admin folder: Do not share the randomly generated folder name; if possible, restrict access to this folder by IP address.
• File permissions: 755 for folders and 644 for files is enough; do not grant write permission outside folders that need it, such as var, img, upload and download.
• Installation leftovers: Do not leave the install folder or test scripts such as phppsinfo.php on the server.
• HTTPS: Enable SSL on all pages and access the back office only over HTTPS.

At network level, the RouteFence firewall in the LIONFIN infrastructure filters DDoS traffic; adding WAF rules against application-level attacks provides an extra layer.

How do you configure SEO in PrestaShop?

Basic SEO settings in PrestaShop are made on the Shop Parameters → Traffic & SEO screen: enabling “Friendly URL”, setting canonical URL redirection to 301 and editing the URL patterns for each page type. When Friendly URL is turned on, PrestaShop regenerates the .htaccess file; if the file is not writable, product pages return a 404 error.

Follow these steps for search visibility:

1. Consider removing unnecessary ID numbers from the product URL pattern, but do it before the store goes live; URLs changed later need 301 redirects.
2. Fill in the meta title, meta description and “friendly URL” field for every product and category, simplifying accented characters.
3. Generate the sitemap with the official sitemap module (gsitemap), submit it to the search console and update it regularly with cron.
4. For out-of-stock products, choose “cannot be ordered but the page stays online”; deleting the page loses rankings you have earned.
5. In a multilingual store, make sure each language has its own URL and that hreflang tags are generated by the theme.

Page speed is also a ranking signal; the settings in the performance section directly improve your Core Web Vitals scores.

What should you watch for when managing PrestaShop modules and themes?

PrestaShop modules are uploaded as zip packages from the Modules → Module Manager screen; theme changes should be made through a child theme rather than directly in the theme files. Following these two rules stops your customisations from disappearing during updates and modules from breaking each other.

• Compatibility: Check that the module description explicitly supports your PrestaShop and PHP versions.
• Overrides: Modules that override core classes cause trouble during updates. Track installed overrides in the override folder and do not install two modules that change the same class.
• Cache clearing: If a change does not appear after installing or removing a module, clear the cache on the Advanced Parameters → Performance screen; if needed, delete the prod directory in var/cache.
• Image sizes: When you change theme, regenerate thumbnails under Design → Image Settings; on a large catalogue this can take a long time, so pick low-traffic hours.
• Test environment: Try payment and shipping modules on a test copy first, with a real order flow.

If you would like the store design and integrations built turnkey, the LIONFIN web development service takes e-commerce projects from design to launch.

How do you plan PrestaShop backups and upgrades?

A safe PrestaShop upgrade starts with a complete backup taken right before the upgrade and a trial run on a test copy. A complete backup covers the database, the img folder with product images, theme and module files, and the app/config/parameters.php configuration file.

1. Take a full account backup from the panel and download it to your computer; the daily automatic backups in LIONFIN web hosting plans are an extra safety layer.
2. Set up a copy of the store on a subdomain and apply the upgrade there.
3. On the copy, test the home page, category, product, cart, checkout and back-office flows.
4. Fix module and theme incompatibilities on the copy, then put the live store into maintenance mode (Shop Parameters → General → Maintenance).
5. Apply the upgrade on the live store, clear the cache and place a test order.

In maintenance mode you can add your own IP address as an exception and test the store while it is closed to visitors. Remember to keep a copy of your backups outside the hosting account.

When should a PrestaShop store move to business hosting or a VDS?

If your PrestaShop store slows down on campaign days, bulk operations in the back office time out, or layered navigation indexing takes hours, it is time to move up a step. These signs show you are reaching the limits of PHP processes, memory or database resources.

On a VDS, CPU and memory are dedicated to you, so a wave of simultaneous orders is not shared with other users; server management, however, is your responsibility. Integrations such as marketplace and stock synchronisation put a constant load on the server. If you do not want to manage a server, business hosting is the right intermediate step. Current plan values are shown in the table on this page.

What are the most common PrestaShop errors?

The most common PrestaShop errors are 500 errors caused by module incompatibility, stale cache, product pages returning 404 because .htaccess is not writable, and the memory limit. To see the details of an error, you need to turn on debug mode temporarily.

• 500 error, blank page: Turn on “Debug mode” under Advanced Parameters → Performance, or if the back office will not open, set _PS_MODE_DEV_ to true in config/defines.inc.php. The error message usually points to the responsible module; always switch the mode off afterwards.
• Product pages return 404: Turn Friendly URL off and on again to regenerate .htaccess; make sure the file is writable.
• Changes do not appear: Clear the cache from the back office; if needed, delete the var/cache/prod folder.
• “Invalid token” warning: The back-office link was opened from an old tab; refresh the page and log in again.
• Imports stop halfway: Increase memory_limit and max_execution_time, or split the file into smaller parts.
• Blurry or missing images: Regenerate thumbnails under Design → Image Settings.

If the problem persists, including the message shown in debug mode and the last installed module in your support request speeds up the fix.