What version of Zen (from last 5 years) has the most plugins and most current users?

Hi,

I'm looking to update a huge website with 20k+ products.

The main goal is just to (1) install responsive template and (2) be able to feed products to Google Merchant. But the existing site uses tons of plugins (Ceon URI and EPpop4 being the most important) so I will need some options if those tools must be replaced.

I don't care about being on the cutting edge (ZC 2.2.2), I just want reliability, options (lots of plugins/templates), and support (active users I can consult with on this forum).

Can somebody tell me which ZC version fits that bill?

Thanks!

Thought I'd plug your query into gemini and I think its a pretty good answer -

Historically, the Zen Cart v1.5.x branch (specifically versions ranging from v1.5.4 through v1.5.7) has the largest pool of community-contributed plugins available in the Zen Cart Plugins Repository.

Because Zen Cart v1.5 enjoyed an incredibly long lifecycle spanning over a decade, hundreds of developers built, tweaked, and maintained tools for it.

However, looking at total plugin availability comes with a massive catch that often trips up shop owners.

The Version vs. Compatibility Dilemma
While older v1.5.x versions technically boast the highest volume of plugins, choosing a version based strictly on plugin count is usually a trap for two major reasons:PHP Compatibility is the real bottleneck: Modern web servers run PHP 8.x. Older Zen Cart versions (like v1.5.5 or v1.5.6) require ancient, insecure versions of PHP (PHP 5.6 to 7.3). If your web host forces an upgrade to a newer PHP version, an older Zen Cart site and its massive library of unmaintained plugins will instantly break with fatal errors.

The "Core Migration" Effect:
The Zen Cart development team frequently adopts the most popular community plugins and builds them directly into newer core releases.
Features that used to require a third-party plugin—such as Login as Customer, Sales Reports with Graphs, Ask a Question, and Admin Profiles—are already built directly into modern versions like v1.5.7, v2.0, and v2.1.

ZC 2 is not cutting edge, it is the current version, which everyone should be using or be in the proces of planning their upgrade.
ZC 3 in the Github repo is the cutting edge.

A huge or tiny database/shop is irrelevant.

You have to upgrade.
php changes, and you will have never-ending errors unless you keep ahead of the php development curve, irrespective of the code improvements in ZC.

Install 2.2 on a test site, import your production db, run the installer again to add the new db fields, then worry about plugins...probably most of which you either don't need anymore or they don't seem so essential as they seemed x years ago.