On October 10th, WooCommerce introduced an upgrade that will speed up your WooCommerce store. Among other improvements, High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) will enable a better, faster checkout experience for your customers and faster order processing for you.
If your store was launched before October 10, 2023, you’ll be able to enable HPOS within your WooCommerce settings. If you’ve launched your store on or after October 10, 2023, great news — HPOS is automatically enabled for your store! This post explains what High-Performance Order Storage is, why we’ve built it for WooCommerce, and how you can enable it for your existing store.
Here’s a quick overview of what you need to know:
- HPOS means your customers’ experience and your store management experience will be faster and better.
- If you have an existing store, it’s available to test — and turn on/off — now, but some extensions aren’t compatible yet. If an extension is incompatible with HPOS, you will receive an alert inside your wp-admin dashboard.
- For stores created on or after October 10, 2023, HPOS is enabled by default. When you download and activate a new extension, you will receive an alert inside your WP Admin dashboard notifying you of any HPOS compatibility issues.
- Third-party developers are responsible for updating their extensions. Woo will continue to communicate with them until the extension is compatible.
What is High-Performance Order Storage?
↑ Torna in cimaHigh-Performance Order Storage, or HPOS, is a major database improvement that WooCommerce has been working on since January 2022. It has been rigorously tested by our developers and the external developer community.
HPOS will unlock major upgrades for your online store, including up to 5x improvement in order creation speed and up to 1.5x faster checkout. On the operational side, performance will also be greatly improved — finding an order will now be up to 40x faster.
It was the most requested feature from our developer community. This is not only a change that will help your store grow and our own technology scale, it’s something that will benefit all developers who work with Woo, from extension creators to the developers who help manage stores on an ongoing basis.
How is order storage changing with this upgrade?
With the current technology, your store’s orders were stored using the same database technology that stores WordPress posts. High-Performance Order Storage will move order information into a new database storage system that is commerce-first and will scale better with your store.
Your website will process orders faster and you’ll be able to access order information more quickly on the backend. This new feature will upgrade your online shop with the most modern database technology that scales easily with your business — no matter how big it grows.
What happens next with HPOS?
We realize that some of the developers we work with may need more time to make their extensions compatible. This means that some plugins will continue to be incompatible for a little while after the general availability date.
HPOS is built into WooCommerce for all new stores, which means you can test it out as soon as you’d like. For existing stores, you’ll still need to enable HPOS.
How will I know if an extension will be compatible with HPOS?
Once you have an extension downloaded and activated, you will receive an alert in your WP Admin dashboard if an extension is incompatible. If an extension you have activated is incompatible, you can try the following steps to fix the issue:
- Deactivate any incompatible extensions to quickly resolve an issue.
- If deactivating the extension is not an option, you can disable HPOS by following these instructions.
How will this impact your WooCommerce store?
↑ Torna in cimaHigh-performance order storage is a default feature for all stores created on or after October 10, 2023.
However, we want to make sure that our existing stores are functioning perfectly and, at this time, HPOS will not be the default experience for existing stores. Your store will continue working but we encourage you to try it out and enjoy the benefits of a faster checkout — or ask the developer you work with to enable it for your store.
This experience will eventually become the default for all stores in the future, but we are giving ourselves and our extension developers plenty of time to make that transition as smooth as possible.
We’ll reach out to all existing stores before enabling HPOS for everyone.
Who can enable High-Performance Order Storage now?
If your store was launched prior to October 10, 2023, and uses WooCommerce 7.1 or later, you are welcome to try HPOS at any time. It’s currently an opt-in experience available under your advanced settings. To find it, follow this navigation path: WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features.
There is documentation on the WooCommerce website and also in GitHub guides for developers. At the moment, it is still an experimental feature until it’s released, so work will be required to sync your store to the new table structure.
We recommend reading through the complete documentation before deciding to enable HPOS for your store.
Please note that some extensions will not be compatible with the new database architecture yet. We’re working with our third-party developers to make sure the extensions they make and support will be compatible with HPOS.
In the meantime, if you choose to try HPOS, we recommend testing the feature in a staging environment before adding it to your live site. Learn how to set up a staging environment for your store in this blog post. Once your staging environment is set up, you can see which extensions will be compatible via your extension screen after HPOS has been enabled.
Since many of our Marketplace extensions are built by third-party developers, we are relying on them to update their extension code for compatibility. If you try HPOS and find your favorite extension is incompatible, we encourage merchants to reach out to that developer and ask them to update soon. WooCommerce has provided instructions and resources to all developers to help them update their products.
If you try HPOS and have any feedback for us, please reach out to our support team and they can make sure your feedback is sent to the right team.
How does this impact stores created after HPOS is released?
↑ Torna in cimaFirst, congratulations on taking a major step in your business journey! If you are creating a new store after High-Performance Order Storage is generally available, this will be the default database structure for your store. There is nothing you will need to do to enable HPOS. However, some extensions will remain incompatible. Despite our best efforts to encourage extension developers to make the updates, some will not have done so in time for general release.
All new stores will receive the full benefits of a faster checkout experience and better operational performance with HPOS.
Frequently asked questions
↑ Torna in cimaThe Woo engineering team is working hard to ensure that all HPOS changes are impactful in positive ways, and so that merchants and developers alike have what they need to make an informed decision about when to enable High-Performance Order Storage.
Below is a list of common questions and their answers. For more technical insight, take a look at our developer blog FAQ. If you have further questions, please leave a note in the comments section or reach out to our support team, and we will respond as quickly as we can.
1. How does High-Performance Order Storage work?
High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) works by adding database storage tables, specific to orders, to the existing WordPress database. This means your orders are going to be now stored in a new table structure designed specifically to work for WooCommerce. For more technical information, our documentation on HPOS is a great resource.
2. I have an existing store but don’t want to try HPOS.
No problem! While we do encourage everyone to switch to HPOS to enjoy the full benefits of a faster checkout experience for your customers, we understand that not everyone will want to try it right away. You will be able to switch at any time.
3. My favorite extension is incompatible with HPOS, what should I do?
We have been actively communicating about the upcoming HPOS change with our developer community. We have several blog posts, guides for how to update extensions in GitHub, and full documentation. Despite our best efforts to encourage extension developers to make the switch, some developers may not accommodate HPOS.
If one of your extensions is incompatible, we strongly recommend that you reach out to the developer’s support team and ask them to make the update. Any extensions that do not update by the time the feature is released will be removed from our Marketplace. You will continue to be able to use the extension without HPOS if you already have it installed.
4. I tried to enable HPOS, but I’m stuck!
If you work with a developer who helps manage your online store, we recommend that you ask them to help migrate your store over to HPOS. If you are not working with a developer and you try HPOS before it’s released, there is additional work needed to sync your store. Be sure to follow our documentation closely.
If you are still running into issues, you can disable HPOS, or you can reach out to our support team for assistance. Additionally, our knowledgeable Woo Partners are available if you need more in-depth help with your online store.
5. Can small businesses use HPOS or is it only meant for larger businesses?
Businesses of all sizes will benefit from High-Performance Order Storage.
6. I have a high-volume store on WooCommerce. How does this impact my store?
Existing stores will not be migrated over to HPOS at this time. You are still welcome to try it, especially if you work with a developer who maintains your store.
Eventually, all Woo stores will migrate to HPOS. When we’re ready to migrate existing stores over, we will reach out again to notify our existing stores not currently on HPOS.
If you need additional support for your high-volume business, you may be eligible for Woo Enterprise, which includes unique benefits like dedicated support and discounted extensions. Learn more about how our team can help your business grow.
7. Will this work with extension [X]?
Prior to HPOS general availability, the best way to check if a specific extension’s compatibility is to enable HPOS under advanced settings and then check your plugins tab in WP Admin. Any extensions not compatible with HPOS will show a message on this screen. You may still be able to use an incompatible extension with HPOS, but please proceed with caution and always test it in a staging environment first.
8. Are there any specific hosting requirements or limitations for using HPOS in WooCommerce?
There are no hosting restrictions. Any host that is able to run WordPress should have no trouble running HPOS, and it should even increase performance in a number of ways after it is enabled.
This post has been updated following the general availability of high-performance order storage with WooCommerce release 8.2.0. For more information on this release, check out this post on our developer blog.
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This sounds absolutely awesome!
Thanks, Michael!
Will products also be migrated to their own table in order to also increase creation, updating and viewing of products?
Why you guys are so late for those kind of things? I dont want to sound bad or whatever but this is asked before a couple of years and is still not ready.
So when you are going to implement the gutenberg in single product pages ? In next 10 years when AI is taken control the internet?
You are so behind from the modern other platforms out there and its sad as you have so big community and free development around the world…
That would be a real High Performance evolution of woocommerce. +1!
good question. Product database is extremely slow queen you need sync a big catalog with external software frequently.
Agreed, I dev on a large ecommerce store, ~40,000 products, and the products are slowing down the site majorly.
Already took my problems to WooCommerce and they said a few years ago that they’re looking into it and are aware of DB speed issues, so potentially they have something…
I agree that this really should be prioritized by WooCommerce. The database structure and performance is big bottleneck and it could be the death of WooCommerce.
They started development of this a few years ago, but for some reason it is not maintained anymore: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce-product-tables-feature-plugin
sound great!
Thanks, Peter! We’re excited, too!
Is it free?
It’s part of WOO
Where will the data be stored and processed? Will it be possible to remain GDPR compliant and not let anything slip out of the EU?
Yes, we are aiming to have all current tools and functionality, including data scrubbing tools for GDPR, to also work seamlessly with HPOS like before.
yeaaah. More speed in checkout is great!
Thanks Alex! We agree!
This sounds great. I love the fact it’s making Woo more professional to scale
Thanks so much, Gary!
I want to active this.. I agree
Please switch from jQuery to vanilla JS. This will also improve the performance of the plugin. Also please remove the extra divs that the plugin generates. Take a look at north commerce, it has 2 times less divs than your plugin.
A huge second to this. I am a full stack dev and haven’t used jQuery for years. JS in the WP worl in general needs updating to modern JS standards.
Why you guys are so late for those kind of things? I dont want to sound bad or whatever but this is asked before a couple of years and is still not ready.
So when you are going to implement the gutenberg in single product pages ? In next 10 years when AI is taken control the internet?
You are so behind from the modern other platforms out there and its sad as you have so big community and free development around the world…
We have been cautious and taking our time in rolling this out as we are trying to avoid potential disruption to existing merchants and plugin developers. That said, we have been setting up the stage for this change since WooCommerce 2.7 with the introduction of CRUD classes.
You can read more about why we took our time in this announcement post: https://developer.woocommerce.com/2022/01/17/the-plan-for-the-woocommerce-custom-order-table/, or this GitHub issue if you are interested in even more details: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/30228
> So when you are going to implement the gutenberg in single product pages ?
Note that the product editing experience is under active development, I’d recommend that you try it out by going to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features and enabling the checkbox for “New product editor”.
> In next 10 years when AI is taken control the internet?
I hope AI won’t take control of the world, but if you’d like to leverage AI in working with WooCommerce you can try out the WooExpress program by signing up here: https://woocommerce.com/express/
great news but you are late for world, try you best, to catch up others….
Dear AutoMattic Team,
this is fantastic news.
Maybe this is the first step to modernize woocommerce and go in the direction of headless-ecommerce?
I hope so, the future of platforms is in that direction and many are modernizing.
A comparison on this issue would be useful.
Thank you
this is great! I’d love to try it but WPML is not compatible yet.
btw i think its very professional that woo is checking that compabtility issue for me before I can even activate HPOS
nice
Thanks!
How long will it take to Convert an existing Store with 40,000 orders over to HOPS?
will this make it easier to update orders when pushing a staging site live? This has been a real pain point for me..
Very nice, awaiting for High-Performance Product Storage. My shop sell second-hand goods, every product is only 1 stock, but same data like anothers.
Interesting indeed.
Would be good to know what you regard as a big store.
At https://alburyestatefisheries.co.uk/ We have around 10,000 orders per year and now have 3 years worth of old order data. We have been culling old orders after 4 years to keep space down.
Should HPOS make the need to remove old order go away and should the time to process an order come down?
Or in other words are we looking at performance benefits as well as increasing the number of orders we can store?
Thanks
great news and i hope you make woo app faster too.
HPOS is not compatible with Astra Pro plugin, as well as several critical WooCommerce extensions I have running. Any news on when the Astra Pro plugin will be compatible or do I need to contact the developer?
Doesn’t move over order data. It stay syncing for days but doesn’t even sync one order.
⚠ There are xxxx orders pending sync from the posts table to the orders table. The feature shouldn’t be disabled until these orders are synchronized
Hi, facing the same issue here. Have you found any fix ?
I came from Japan.
this is a good blog
Awaiting for it!
I have a store with over 134k orders. So it is considered high volume? Our Development is afraid to update. Do you recommend do not update now?
6. I have a high-volume store on WooCommerce. How does this impact my store?
Existing stores will not be migrated over to HPOS at this time. You are still welcome to try it, especially if you work with a developer who maintains your store.
Eventually, all Woo stores will migrate to HPOS. When we’re ready to migrate existing stores over, we will reach out again to notify our existing stores not currently on HPOS.
This is great news to hear. Thank you for improving WooCommerce!
Woo keeps getting better for CRO. Thumbs up!
This is great news! Thank you.
The recent platform upgrade for WooCommerce brings high-performance order storage, enhancing the overall e-commerce experience. With improved data handling and efficiency, it’s easier than ever to manage orders and customer data. Just like streamlining your e-commerce operations, consider Marriage Certificate Attestation services for a smoother path to personal and professional goals.
The post structure for wordpress reminds me of ancient IBM system32 non-relational datavase structure with multiformat tables… so slow and convoluted.
I am glad to see this upgrade but word to all …It breaks the functionality of any plugin using the normal post tables in wordpress… pretty much nuked all my extra features… I AM EAGER FOR ALL THE 3RD PARTY PLUGIN PUBLISHERS TO GET ON BOARD WITH THIS.