WooCommerce Security and Plugin Updates: Maintain or Switch?

“Plugin updates are needed all the time” is a common reason to think about leaving WooCommerce, and it is a fair one. WooCommerce is not insecure, but a WooCommerce store is only as secure as the maintenance that comes with it. This article shows where the risks actually are, what “maintain regularly” means in practice, and what Shopify takes off your hands and what it does not.

Where the vulnerabilities really are

The core of WordPress is rarely the problem. The security vendor Patchstack counts, in its report State of WordPress Security in 2026, 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 42 percent more than the year before. Of these, 91 percent were in plugins, 9 percent in themes and only 6 in WordPress core.

Two more figures from the same report show why time matters:

• 46 percent of the vulnerabilities had no fix from the developer yet when they were disclosed.
• For the most heavily exploited vulnerabilities, the median time to mass attacks was about 5 hours; roughly half of the high-impact ones were exploited within 24 hours.

A note for context: Patchstack sells security products, and the numbers cover WordPress as a whole, not only WooCommerce. The pattern is still clear. Every additional plugin is additional attack surface, and an update that waits a week comes too late for some vulnerabilities. And because almost every second vulnerability has no fix yet when it becomes public, updates alone are not enough: the fewer plugins you run, the less there is that can be affected at all.

What “maintain regularly” means in practice

The official WooCommerce security guide names updates, staging, clean-up, backups and access protection. Translated into tasks someone has to do, with a few things that come from practice:

1. Install updates: WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin, plus the PHP version at the host.
2. Test beforehand: try updates on a staging copy first, not directly in the live store.
3. Check afterwards: cart, checkout, payment methods, translation and forms. An update that silently breaks the checkout costs sales before anyone notices.
4. Clean up: remove plugins that are no longer maintained or have known vulnerabilities. That includes plugins that are just “still there”.
5. Secure access: strong passwords, two-factor authentication, limited login attempts, as few admin accounts as needed.
6. Backups: regular, stored off the server, and restored as a test at least once.

This list is not rocket science. The problem is that it is never finished: it repeats with every update, every week, for every plugin.

Automatic updates are only half the answer

If you turn on all automatic updates, there is still the risk that an update breaks the checkout at night and nobody notices until morning. If you turn them off, the hole stays open until someone has time. What works sits in between: automatic updates for the uncritical parts, a fixed maintenance rhythm with testing for everything that touches the store and checkout, and one person responsible for it.

What Shopify takes over

With Shopify, most of this list drops away because it no longer sits with you:

• Hosting, servers and platform updates are Shopify’s job. There is no WordPress version, no PHP version and no platform plugin updates for you to install.
• SSL is built in and the checkout runs on Shopify.
• Card data: Shopify states that it is certified PCI DSS Level 1; according to Shopify the certification extends by default to all stores and covers the store, the cart and the hosting.
• Apps are updated centrally by their developers. You do not install files.

What stays your job on Shopify

Shopify is not a free pass. These stay with you:

• Choosing and pruning apps. Every app is third-party code with access to your data. Fewer apps mean less risk and a faster store (see Slow Shopify store? 7 reasons).
• Managing access. Who is staff in the store, with which permissions, with two-factor authentication? Former employees and agencies should be removed.
• Theme updates and theme code. Themes from the Theme Store get new versions that you have to adopt deliberately. You or your developer are responsible for custom changes, and a customized theme does not update itself.
• Phishing and passwords. Accounts are often taken over not through vulnerabilities but through stolen credentials.

The difference is the scale: you look after a small circle of access and apps instead of a whole system.

Three ways if updates weigh on you

It depends on what else runs on your WordPress installation besides the store:

1. Maintain WooCommerce properly. The least disruption. It needs someone who reliably handles updates, tests, backups and clean-up, ideally on a fixed rhythm. Reducing plugins makes sense.
2. Only the store to Shopify. Checkout, customer data and payments move to Shopify. The company pages stay on WordPress, so their updates do too, but the most sensitive part is no longer there. Old product addresses need redirects so your rankings stay.
3. The whole website to Shopify. One system, and the WordPress updates disappear entirely. That is the biggest rebuild, because company pages, forms and possibly language versions are rebuilt.

Which way fits depends mostly on who maintains the site today, what belongs to the site besides the store, and whether special functions depend on other systems.

When you should stay on WooCommerce

A switch is not always the right answer. Stay if:

• someone takes over maintenance reliably and with testing, for example an agency with a fixed maintenance plan,
• your store relies on extensions that have no replacement in Shopify,
• the maintenance effort is small because only a few well-maintained plugins are in use.

It is best to settle this plugin by plugin. How a move works is shown in Moving from WooCommerce to Shopify without losing rankings.

Ten questions to ask yourself

1. Who installs the updates, and who covers for that person?
2. When was the last update installed, and what was tested afterwards?
3. Is there a staging copy where updates run first?
4. How many plugins are active, and how many are still maintained?
5. Are there plugins we no longer need?
6. Has a backup ever actually been restored?
7. How many admin accounts exist, and do all have two-factor authentication?
8. Which PHP version runs at the host, and is it still supported?
9. Who notices if the checkout stops working after an update?
10. What does an hour of downtime cost us?

If you can only answer “don’t know” to several of them, that already answers the question of how securely the store is maintained today.

Frequently asked questions

Is WooCommerce insecure? No. The software is widely used and maintained. The risk comes from the many plugins and themes around it and from updates that are installed late or not at all.

Are automatic updates enough? For the uncritical parts, yes. For everything that touches the store and checkout, a test is needed, otherwise the risk of a broken checkout is bigger than the benefit.

Is Shopify more secure than WooCommerce? That cannot be said across the board. Shopify takes hosting, platform updates and the checkout off your hands and so cuts the maintenance work noticeably. Apps, access and theme code remain your responsibility.

Do I lose my Google rankings when I switch? Not if all old addresses are redirected to the matching new ones. That is the most important step of a move.

Can I get less work without switching? Yes: reduce plugins, set up a fixed maintenance rhythm with testing, and clarify who is responsible. That is often the first step whichever way you choose next.

How well is your store maintained today?

Send me your store’s address for the free store check. I look at what is visible from the outside: which plugins are in use and how fast the pages load. I only work with publicly visible data, without access to your backend and without a security scan. Then I tell you honestly whether maintaining or switching suits you better. I work from Bad Bentheim, mostly remotely, and take on the move from WooCommerce to Shopify at a fixed price after the briefing when needed. What to expect beforehand is in What a Shopify store costs.

Further reading: Shopify maintenance: what the platform handles

Kiril Karatitsyn, Shopify developer in Germany