Our PrestaShop to Magento migration service transfers all critical store data following a structured pre-migration audit. Every entity is mapped from PrestaShop's database model to Magento 2's EAV architecture, validated in staging, and tested before your new store goes live.
Product names, SKUs, descriptions, prices, images, inventory levels, product combinations (variants), attributes, and product SEO data mapped from PrestaShop's combination model to Magento 2's configurable product and attribute set architecture.
Customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, billing and shipping addresses, and customer group assignments migrated from PrestaShop's customer model to Magento 2 profiles with full data integrity. Passwords cannot be migrated; customers reset on first login.
PrestaShop cart rules and discount codes, reduction types, usage limits, expiry dates, minimum cart conditions, and product or category restrictions recreated within Magento 2's cart price rules and promotions framework.
Complete PrestaShop order history including statuses, line items, tax calculations, carrier information, and billing records transferred and validated against the source store post-import.
Product reviews migrated to Magento 2's native review and rating system, preserving star ratings, review content, reviewer names, and publication status.
PrestaShop manufacturer data migrated as Magento 2 product attributes, maintaining catalogue organisation and enabling layered navigation filtering on the new store.
PrestaShop custom product features and specifications are remapped to Magento 2's custom attribute and EAV structure ensuring all product detail data carries over accurately.
Product prices, specific prices (sale prices), tier pricing structures, and PrestaShop tax rule group assignments migrated accurately. Magento 2 tax zone and rate configuration handled as part of new store setup.
All PrestaShop blog posts, images, categories, tags, author data, publish dates, and SEO metadata migrated using a compatible Magento 2 blog extension with URL mapping applied throughout.
Meta titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags, full URL structure mapping, and 301 redirects for every changed URL protecting the organic authority your PrestaShop store has built.
PrestaShop CMS pages About Us, Contact, FAQ, policy pages, and static content migrated with content and SEO metadata intact into Magento 2's CMS page model.
After completing 150+ ecommerce platform migrations, we follow a proven process that protects your traffic, revenue, and customer data from the first day of the project through to 30 days post-launch.
PrestaShop and Magento 2 generate URLs with different structures across products, categories, CMS pages, and blog content. We crawl your full PrestaShop site before migration begins, map every URL to its Magento equivalent, and implement 301 redirects at go-live. Your organic rankings follow no traffic lost to broken links.
Your PrestaShop store continues trading normally during the entire project. All Magento 2 build and data migration work happens on a separate staging environment, fully tested before your domain switches over. Customers see no disruption.
PrestaShop uses a product combination system with attributes different from Magento 2's configurable product and attribute set model. Every product type and combination structure is assessed and mapped in the audit phase. Products with complex combination sets or manufacturer-specific attribute structures need a mapping strategy agreed upfront, not discovered post-import.
PrestaShop modules don't transfer to Magento. Every module handling a business function, payment gateways, shipping rules, loyalty programmes, multilingual content, B2B features, ERP connections needs a Magento 2 extension equivalent or custom module. We audit the full module stack at project start and confirm the replacement plan before scope is agreed.
Unlike PrestaShop, which runs on modest PHP/MySQL hosting, Magento 2 requires a dedicated or managed server environment with Redis caching, Elasticsearch for search, and proper PHP memory allocation. This hosting decision needs to be made before migration starts; it determines performance on day one and shapes ongoing operational cost.
Traffic, rankings, checkout performance, and integration sync are monitored after the domain switches. Any issue that surfaces is resolved as part of the project, not raised as a separate engagement.
We implement multiple security measures to ensure a safe, compliant, and risk-free Magento to Magento migration. Your data is protected at every stage.
PrestaShop and Magento are both open-source ecommerce platforms, but they serve different tiers of the market. PrestaShop is well-suited to small and mid-sized stores where accessibility and low initial cost matter. Magento 2 is built for operations that have outgrown those priorities and need enterprise-grade architecture, deeper customisation, and native B2B capability. This guide covers when that transition is justified, what the technical challenges involve, what Magento delivers, and where PrestaShop's architecture creates genuine commercial constraints.
PrestaShop has a strong user base, particularly in Europe and Latin America, and it's a genuinely capable platform for stores operating at small to mid-market scale. It's accessible, free to download, and has a large module ecosystem. The businesses that migrate from PrestaShop to Magento have typically been running on PrestaShop for several years, have grown significantly, and are now hitting the structural limits of what PrestaShop can reliably handle at their current size and complexity.
The most consistent triggers are catalogue scale, B2B requirements, and multi-store complexity. PrestaShop handles standard B2C product catalogues well, but as catalogues grow to tens of thousands of SKUs with complex attribute sets, performance under load becomes a real concern. PrestaShop's module-based B2B approximations custom pricing through modules, quote requests through add-ons don't match what Magento provides natively. And PrestaShop's multi-store capability exists but requires significant technical overhead compared to Magento's native multi-store architecture.
The module dependency problem compounds over time. PrestaShop's core feature set is extended almost entirely through third-party modules from a marketplace where update cadences, compatibility standards, and maintenance commitments vary widely between developers. As a store accumulates modules, the risk of conflicts after updates increases and the maintenance burden grows. This is a structural similarity to WooCommerce's plugin problem, the same open-source accumulation of technical debt over time.
The move to Magento is a deliberate architectural upgrade. Magento 2 is more complex and more expensive to run than PrestaShop that's a known trade-off. The businesses that make this migration are doing so because the commercial requirements they're operating with justify that added complexity. They want Magento's EAV catalogue model, its native B2B suite, its multi-store architecture, and its REST/GraphQL API depth for enterprise integrations.
Our Magento development team has delivered PrestaShop to Magento migrations for European mid-market brands, manufacturers with complex product catalogues, and businesses expanding into B2B operations that outgrew what PrestaShop's module stack could support.
Both PrestaShop and Magento are open-source PHP platforms, but their database architectures are fundamentally different. Moving between them involves genuine data model translation, not just a transfer.
Product combination to configurable product mapping.Â
PrestaShop handles product variations through a combination system attributes (colour, size, material) combine to create combinations with individual SKUs, prices, and stock. Magento 2 uses configurable products with attribute sets and child simple products. The structural mapping between these two models needs careful handling. Products with complex combination sets, manufacturer-specific attribute structures, or unusual variation logic need individual mapping decisions made before migration starts.
Module-to-extension translation.Â
PrestaShop modules don't run on Magento. Every module handling a business function needs to be assessed whether a Magento extension equivalent exists, whether a better alternative is available, or whether custom module development is needed. For stores that have been running PrestaShop for years, the module stack can be substantial. An experienced team of developers who hire a Magento developer for this work will know the Magento extension landscape well enough to map PrestaShop's functionality accurately.
URL structure and SEO preservation.Â
PrestaShop uses its own URL rewriting system that produces SEO-friendly URLs in a structure different from Magento's /catalog/product/view/, /catalog/category/view/, and CMS page structures. Every URL that changes needs a 301 redirect. We crawl the full PrestaShop site before migration, map every URL, and validate all redirects in staging before the domain switches.
Multi-language and multi-store architecture.Â
PrestaShop has strong native multi-language and multi-store capabilities. Stores using these features need a considered migration strategy either migrating to a single Magento store with Magento's multi-store architecture for international selling, or mapping each PrestaShop store to a separate Magento website or store view. The right approach depends on how the business uses its multi-language or multi-store setup commercially.
Hosting infrastructure step-up.Â
PrestaShop runs on modest PHP/MySQL hosting. Magento 2 requires a more powerful dedicated environment with Redis object caching, Elasticsearch or OpenSearch for product search, and adequate PHP memory allocation. This infrastructure needs to be provisioned and configured before migration starts.
Theme and frontend rebuild.Â
PrestaShop themes don't transfer to Magento. A new Magento 2 theme needs to be built. Customer passwords cannot be migrated between platforms every customer will need to reset their password on first login.
For businesses that have genuinely outgrown PrestaShop's architecture, the benefits of Magento 2 are specific and commercially meaningful.
Enterprise-grade catalogue architecture.Â
Magento's EAV model supports unlimited product attributes, complex configurable product structures, bundled and grouped product types, and sophisticated layered navigation filtering that performs well at scale. For stores with large catalogues, manufacturer-specific attribute sets, or deep product configuration requirements, Magento handles complexity that PrestaShop's combination system and module-based extensions struggle with under commercial loads.
Native B2B capability at depth.Â
Magento 2's B2B module (Adobe Commerce) includes company account management, multiple buyers per company with permission levels, shared catalogues with customer-group-specific pricing, quote management with approval workflows, purchase order processing, and requisition lists. These are platform-native features. PrestaShop's B2B functionality is assembled through third-party modules with the compatibility and maintenance risks that implies. For businesses where complex B2B operations are a primary revenue channel, this native depth is the primary case for Magento.
Multi-store management from one admin.Â
Magento's native multi-store architecture lets you manage multiple websites, stores, and store views from a single admin each with separate catalogues, pricing, content, language, and tax configuration. For businesses operating internationally, across multiple brands, or running parallel B2B and B2C operations, this is architecturally cleaner and more capable than PrestaShop's multi-store implementation.
Full codebase ownership and open-source flexibility.Â
Like PrestaShop, Magento is open-source if you own the full application. Unlike PrestaShop's module dependency model, Magento's service contract architecture and dependency injection framework make custom development more structured and less likely to produce the module conflicts that accumulate on PrestaShop over time.
A high-performance frontend with Hyvä theme development.Â
After migrating to Magento 2, implementing a Hyvä frontend delivers Core Web Vitals performance that standard Luma-based themes cannot match faster page loads, better mobile experience, and improved conversion performance. For brands where storefront performance is a commercial priority, the combination of Magento's commerce architecture and Hyvä's frontend is a strong foundation.
API-first architecture for complex integrations.Â
Magento 2's REST and GraphQL APIs, service contract architecture, and modular design make reliable, high-volume integrations with ERP systems, PIMs, CRMs, and warehouse management systems substantially easier than PrestaShop's webservice API at enterprise data volumes.
PrestaShop's limitations are not hidden; they become apparent at specific scale and complexity thresholds that growing mid-market stores encounter predictably.
Module dependency creates compounding technical debt.Â
PrestaShop's core is extended almost entirely through third-party modules. As stores accumulate modules from different developers on different update schedules, the risk of conflicts after platform updates increases and the maintenance burden grows. Each module update needs testing before deployment. Module incompatibilities can break store functionality without warning. For stores that have been running PrestaShop for several years, this accumulated module stack is often the largest operational burden.
B2B features require module assembly rather than native capability.Â
PrestaShop does not have a native B2B module comparable to Magento's. Wholesale pricing, company account management, quote workflows, and customer-specific catalogues all require third-party module combinations that vary in quality, compatibility, and maintenance reliability. For businesses where B2B operations are a significant revenue channel, this module-assembled approximation of B2B capability is a genuine commercial constraint.
Performance under large catalogue load.Â
PrestaShop's combination system handles standard product catalogues well. As catalogues grow to tens of thousands of SKUs with complex attribute sets and large combination counts, PrestaShop requires increasing infrastructure investment and careful database optimisation to maintain acceptable performance. Magento's EAV architecture is specifically designed for this scale of catalogue complexity.
Multi-store complexity at scale.Â
PrestaShop's multi-store feature exists and works, but managing multiple storefronts with different catalogues, pricing, and content from a single PrestaShop installation becomes technically demanding at scale. Magento's native multi-store architecture is more capable and more clearly structured for serious multi-brand or multi-regional operations.
Smarty template system limits frontend flexibility.Â
PrestaShop uses the Smarty templating engine for its frontend. Magento 2's frontend architecture and particularly Magento 2 migration to a Hyvä-based theme gives developers far greater flexibility and delivers better Core Web Vitals performance than PrestaShop's template system allows, without the complexity of a full headless architecture.
The developer talent pool is narrower.Â
PrestaShop's developer ecosystem, while substantial in parts of Europe, is considerably smaller than Magento's global developer community and the Adobe Commerce certified partner network. For businesses that need ongoing development support, this affects both the quality and cost of available expertise over time.
If these constraints are affecting your business and the case for Magento is clear, get in touch for a free consultation with our Magento team.
We follow a precise and streamlined approach for Prestashop to Magento migration, ensuring minimal downtime, reduced risk, and maximum efficiency.
Kiwi Commerce holds Adobe Commerce Certified status, and our founder holds Magento Master status awarded to fewer than 60 developers globally. PrestaShop to Magento requires technical knowledge of both platforms: PrestaShop's combination model, module architecture, and URL rewriting on one side, and Magento's EAV structure, extension ecosystem, and hosting requirements on the other. Every project starts with a pre-migration audit that surfaces the specific technical risks before scope is agreed.
We work to a fixed scope and timeline, execute in staging while your PrestaShop store stays live, and include 30 days of post-launch monitoring as standard. Your new Magento store goes live only after products, checkout, extensions, redirects, and performance have all been fully tested. No surprises at go-live.