Magento 1 vs Magento 2: Should You Upgrade?

A Quick Glance on What is Magento

Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform. Magento comes with better themes and modules that help online retailers boost sales and success through enhanced eCommerce websites. It offers various benefits including flexibility, better performance, and multitasking to the website.

Magento launched Magento 1 but, due to some emerging problems and complaints, it launched Magento 2 to overcome the problems. Magento 1 and Magento 2 have various versions and some of them are not freely downloadable.

• The editions are discussed below :

  • Magento 1 is available in Magento 1 Community Edition or Magento 1 Enterprise Edition.

  • Magento 2 edition includes:

    • Magento 2 Open Source which is free to download.
    • Magento 2 Enterprise Edition (EE): This edition is a self-hosted option for enterprise business. The price of Edition depends on the size of the business and its complexity.
    • Magento 2 Enterprise Cloud Edition (ECE): This edition is similar to the previous one, but the installation cost includes cloud hosting through Amazon Web Services. This edition is also known as Magento Commerce.

So, what are the key differences between Magento 1 and Magento 2. Let’s discuss Magento 1 vs Magento 2 in detail.

Magento 1 vs Magento 2 performance

Magento 2 is the advanced version of Magento 1, so you can expect improved performance from 2 with good speed. The performance of e-commerce stores directly affects business growth. Slow speed may lead to slow delivery and indeed low customers. Websites can face increased customer traffic at any time, therefore you always need a solution that suffices and meets their demands. The differences in performance are discussed below:

• Magento 2 is fastest and has improved frontend performance. In comparison to Magento 1, Magento 2 has the capacity to store page load faster, with high intelligence to manage customer orders within an hour.
• The satisfying performance and fast speed make Magento 2 different from its counterpart. The loading speed is upto 50 % more and its utilization allows the website to manage more than 39 percent consumer orders in an hour. It can also manage 10 million customer viewers in an hour.
• One important thing that affects the performance is the quality of hosting. Using an outdated host can have negative effects on your performance. The Magento 2 Enterprise Cloud Commerce has inbuilt hosting but other versions urge clients to choose their host. It depends on their own choice.

Difference between Magento 1 and Magento 2

Magento 1 and Magento 2 have architectural dissimilarities.

• The problem of store performance from Magento 1 has been corrected in Magento 2. The stack has been changed and upgraded with advanced technologies including Apache, Symfony, and Composer.
• Magento 2 utilizes the advanced versions of PHP which allows high security that affects the speed of online stores
• The redundant browser’s operations from the client’s end have been decreased in Magento 2 by making changes in the JavaScript.
• Development in the cache memory of the browser to get static data.

• Some important stats focused on differentiating Magento 1 and Magento 2.

  • The processing speed of Magento 2 is 39 percent increased orders in an hour.
  • The time of server response is more in Magento 2 for catalog browsing
  • Magento 2 allows 66% faster response time for add-to-cart servers.
  • Magento 2 allows 51% improved end-to-end checkout time.

Magento 2 has been launched with an advanced technology stack to overcome Magento 1. Magento 2 is a new platform; therefore, it is difficult for clients to adapt data migration for using the new version. Magento 2 supports HTML 4 and the whole architectural design is based on PHP7, which is a platform for improved data optimization and customization. Magento 2 also supports My SQL Percona 5.6 and higher versions. New improved technological features of Magento 2 make it more advanced than its counterpart. The technology includes:

Varnish: It is a cost-effective technique focused on web acceleration that includes increased speed to the Magento 2 supported website.

Symfony: This is a PHP web application framework to ease the control of content, the functionality, and the outlook of the online store.

Composer: It is a tool supporting dependency management in PHP. It allows the client to reuse third-party libraries without compiling the source code and decreasing extension conflicts.

NGINX: It is an open-source web server that works as a reverse proxy, HTTP cache, and load balancer.

Redis: It is an open-source along with an in-memory data structure store that utilizes database cache and broker for messages.

Which is more mobile-friendly: Magento 1 or Magento 2?

Nowadays more and more consumers are using smartphones and iOS devices for online purchases from grocery to electronics, Internet browsing, and arranging meetings over Zoom or other apps. People are getting more comfortable living life with these devices. The concept of mobile e-commerce is on the rise and it is the sole reason why retailers are keener to develop a mobile-friendly website.

Magento 1:

The whole notion of mobile-friendliness along with the performance of the site differentiates Magento 1 from 2. The Magento developers and community are focused on optimizing it with mobile phones, but what they developed is not standardized with the theme.

Magento 2:

When compared to Magento 1, Magento 2 is more mobile-friendly. Its themes are more responsive, and the checkout is purely optimized for mobile phones. Most of the themes from Magento are going to be customized and patrons should make sure that their developers are certified by Magento.

Extension of Magento 1 vs Magento 2

There are conflicting and affordable extensions for both which is discussed further.

Magento 1 Extensions:

In the market, several third-party extensions are available for Magento. The extension conflicts are one of the issues faced by Magento 1. Two or more extensions try to rewrite the same functionality. The problem can be solved manually, but it is time-consuming and expensive.

This problem is not encountered in Magento 2, as the plugins allow code to overlap with unique code rather than overlapping it.

Magento 2 Extensions:

The installation and updations of new extensions are easy nowadays. The procedure used in the installation and modifications of extensions is easier due to the new technology, including HTML5, CSS3, Require.js being introduced in Magento 2.

The availability of payment gateway in Magento 1 vs Magento 2

Offering a secure payment gateway to consumers is the first and foremost important requirement of an e-commerce retailer. A protected and shielded payment method helps in developing trust and improves the conversion rates of online businesses.

Magento 1:

An e-commerce solution allows store owners to utilize popular payment gateways on their Magento site. But this utilization needs the approval of third-party integration or custom development work.

Magento 2:

Unlike Magento 1, Magento 2 actively supports the most popular gateway paths automatically without integrations. The supported gateways include PayPal, Braintree, and Authorize.net.

Streamlining of checkout in Magento 1 vs Magento 2

According to survey , nearly 1 out of 5 shoppers have abandoned a cart in the last quarter due to a “too long / complicated checkout process” A proper checkout streamline is too important to increase traffic and commerce.

Magento 1:

The checkout process of Magento 1 is not consumer-friendly. They have to go through six different steps: checkout method, billing info, shipping info, choosing a shipping method, payment information, and last but not least reviewing the order. These are hectic and very difficult to skip, and the main point is they all are presented on different pages.

Magento 2:

Magento 2 is more customer-friendly with some improvements on the checkout user experience. It has slashed the six steps into two steps including shipping method and payment review. It has also improved the checkout options.

The reason why should you migrate to Magento 2

Magento 2 has been launched with numerous advanced features and functions and it is a boon over Magento 1.

One of the main reasons why you should migrate to Magento 2 is due to security reasons. Magento 2 has been launched with improved built-in security features.

Additionally, Magento 2 also has a fraud protection system called Signifyd. The feature allows the platform to recognize and abandon orders that seem to fraud. In this way, it delivers more chargeback protection.

Magento 2 has included new features called page builder, PWA (Progressive Web Applications) and this will become one of the superior robust e-commerce solutions with enhanced speed, security, and performance.

Conclusion

Magento 2 is an advanced version of Magento 1. Retailers who want to improve and enlarge the business opt for Magento 2 despite its migration cost and time. Retailers need to make a quick decision to upgrade to Magento 2, to get improved performance and better business reach.

In today’s scenario most of the eCommerce websites are migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2. If you want an easy and smooth migration with 0 to minimum downtime, Get in touch.