Magento 1 officially reached end of life on 30 June 2020. That means no security patches, no bug fixes, and no official support from Adobe. Yet a surprising number of Irish ecommerce businesses are still running on it in 2025.
If that’s you — this post is worth reading before your next busy season.
What “End of Life” Actually Means
When a platform reaches end of life, the vendor stops maintaining it. For Magento 1, that means:
- No security patches — vulnerabilities discovered after June 2020 will never be fixed by Adobe
- No PCI compliance updates — processing card payments on an unpatched platform puts your business and your customers at risk
- No PHP 8 support — Magento 1 runs on outdated PHP versions that are themselves unsupported
- Shrinking extension support — extension developers have stopped updating M1 versions of their plugins
The longer you stay on Magento 1, the larger the security gap becomes.
The Real Risks for Irish Merchants
Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance
If you accept card payments through your website, you are required to maintain PCI DSS compliance. Running an unpatched, end-of-life platform is a direct compliance risk. In the event of a breach, your payment processor and bank will ask whether your platform was up to date. An M1 store in 2025 is not.
GDPR Liability
Irish businesses are subject to GDPR under Irish and EU law. A security breach on an outdated platform that exposes customer data is a reportable incident to the Data Protection Commission. The fines and reputational damage can be severe.
Customer Trust
Modern browsers increasingly flag older ecommerce sites. A breach — even a small one — can result in your domain being blacklisted, decimating organic traffic overnight.
Hosting Support
Most quality managed hosting providers have either dropped or are actively dropping PHP 7.x support, which Magento 1 requires. You may find your hosting options narrowing.
Why Have Some Irish Stores Stayed on Magento 1 This Long?
We hear the same reasons repeatedly:
- “It works fine” — Until it doesn’t. Security incidents rarely give advance notice.
- “Migration is too expensive” — A migration is an investment. A breach, with legal fees, customer remediation, and lost revenue, is almost always more expensive.
- “We don’t have time” — Migration can be phased and planned around your trading calendar. Waiting for a breach doesn’t give you that luxury.
- “We have too many custom features” — Magento 2 and MageOS are more capable than M1. Every custom feature can be rebuilt, often better.
What a Migration Actually Involves
A Magento 1 to Magento 2 (or MageOS) migration is a significant project, but it’s well-understood and manageable with the right team.
Phase 1: Audit & Planning
We review your current M1 store — custom features, extensions, integrations, data volumes, and design. We map every piece of functionality to a Magento 2 equivalent or build a custom replacement.
Phase 2: Data Migration
Products, categories, customers, and order history are migrated to the new platform. SEO URLs and redirects are preserved so you don’t lose your organic rankings.
Phase 3: Theme & Frontend
Your store gets a new frontend — either a custom design or a Hyvä-based theme. This is the opportunity to modernise the UX and close the gap with competitors who migrated years ago.
Phase 4: Extension & Integration Rebuild
Each M1 extension is either replaced with a Magento 2 equivalent or rebuilt as a custom module. Third-party integrations (ERPs, CRMs, payment gateways) are reconnected.
Phase 5: Testing & Go-Live
Thorough QA across devices and browsers, performance testing, and a planned cutover with rollback capability.
How Long Does It Take?
Timelines vary by store complexity:
- Simple store (under 5,000 SKUs, few customisations): 8–14 weeks
- Mid-size store (5,000–50,000 SKUs, moderate customisations): 14–24 weeks
- Complex store (large catalogue, heavy customisation, multiple integrations): 24–40 weeks
The Cost of Waiting
Every month you stay on Magento 1 in 2025 is a month where:
- Your security exposure grows
- Your competitors on modern platforms pull further ahead on performance and UX
- The cost of eventual migration grows (more custom code to rebuild, more data to migrate)
The businesses we’ve migrated consistently report that the new platform pays for itself through improved conversion rates, lower maintenance costs, and the peace of mind of running a secure, supported system.
Ready to Move?
At Pronko Consulting, we’ve migrated Irish and UK businesses from Magento 1 to Magento 2 and MageOS. We know the pitfalls, we know the shortcuts worth taking and the ones to avoid, and we know how to run a migration without killing your current trading.