Magento got a problem that nobody sees to be talking about. The so-called elephant in the room. Mainly how you migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2 and how much it costs.
First some background
Magento 1 was released in 2008. 7 years later, Magento 2 was released in 2015.
Magento 1 grew to be one of the most popular and widespread ecommerce platforms in the world (and still is). It was free, open source and easy to extend. A big ecosystem sprung up, with developers and agencies offering their services, integrations and modules (plugins). Everything was good.
However, over time it grew clear that something needed to be done. Magento was built on the Zend framework, which started to show its age. Meanwhile newer, fancier and better technologies had emerged.
Having learned from past experiences with Magento 1, Magento released Magento 2 to much pomp and fanfare, touting a new and better technology stack, better performance and whatnot. Or so it seemed.
To say Magento 2 had a rough start, is an understatement of dimensions. It was plagued with issues and bugs. First movers really burned themselves. Not only did more and more bugs add up, Magento also made drastic changes to how the platform worked codewise a couple of times, which meant you had to rebuild your site and modules if you wanted to get that latest update. It was such a big issue (as a lot of merchants simply can’t conjure money out of the thin air and therefore couldn’t update to the latest versions due to the amount of work it required), that they had to make a separate branch, just to support the merchants on the “old” version of Magento. That is only something you do, if you want to avoid severe backlash and not anger a big part of your userbase.
Sunsetting Magento 1
All good things come to an end and so does Magento 1. After a long time with rumours, in September 2018 Magento finally confirmed that Magento 1 will reach end of life after June 2020.
That have left a lot of webshop owners in a tricky spot. Do you move to Magento 2 or stay on Magento 1 and live with the security risks?
The issue
While similarily in name, Magento 2 is totally different from Magento 1 codewise. That means you can’t reuse existing code from your Magento 1 shop if you move to Magento 2.
Can you see where this leads?
It means that you have to start all over, if you want to move to Magento 2.
While some might argue this is good (and in some ways, it is), it is also costly. Many merchants simply don’t have the money for such an operation. Especially not if you’re a small and medium sized company, which the majority of Magento merchants are.
Now imagine you’re a merchant that have been on Magento 1 for several years and have a customized shop with lots of modules and integrations. If you want to move to Magento 2, that entails:
- Migrating data, such as orders, products and customers. While Magento got some official migration tools, they work best if you don’t have any custom attributes or tables. More often than not, you have to tweak those tools to get the data you want. Then there is the entire validation issue and checking data have been migrated correctly.
- Buy and install any modules you might be using. Be aware that the module might now even exist in Magento 2, offer the same functionallity and is generally more expensive to buy (as things take longer to develop on Magento 2 the developers have generally raised their prices).
- Implement your theme from scratch (unless you are one of those who buy a premade theme, but that is another headache / issue in itself).
- Rebuild any integrations to 3rd party systems. Got an ERP / PIM / POS? You have to make a new integration.
- Test, test and more test. Test that your data have been migrated successfully. Test that your modules are working as intended. Test that your theme looks and performs as it should. Test that your integration works. And then test it all some more. Chances are you’ll stumble into a bug and then you have to figure out if you can live with it, want to fix it yourself or wait for it to be (hopefully) fixed in a future update.
As you can see, all of the above takes time. A lot of it. And we all know that time equals money. Money coming out of your pocket as a merchant.
Why move to Magento 2?
That is a very good question. A question I don’t have a really good answer to right now. Because to be honest, there is not a lot of good reasons for why you should move to Magento 2.
Reason #1: Magento 2 can’t do anything Magento 1 also can do. I still haven’t seen the killer feature, that is distinctly unique to Magento 2 and can’t be replicated on Magento 1.
Reason #2: Magento 2 is not faster than Magento 1, even though Adobe claims otherwise.
Magento 2 is heavily reliant on cache. With cache deactivated, Magento 2 slows to a crawl. A Magento 1 shop can run perfectly fine without cache.
I have personally led several projects where we delivered a Magento 1 shop with response times sub 150 ms. without cache activated. Can’t say the same for Magento 2.
Reason #3: Everything is much more expensive to do on Magento 2.
What previously could be done with 1 line of code in Magento 1, might take 10 lines in Magento 2. And the only one to pay for that extra time is the merchant. Oh, and that module license? It costs twice as much on Magento 2. Why? Because Magento 2.
Sure, the costs might come down over time as the developers get more experience with the platform. But that doesn’t change the fact, that Magento 2 is more expensive all the way around – it is pretty clear it is geared more towards the enterprise segment, rather than the small and medium sized businesses.
Catch 22
A wise man once said: You’re fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t.
The same can be said with Magento 1.
While there is a Long Term Support version (LTS) the community maintains, it is pretty hard to say how much it will be supported after June 2020. It might take off like a rocket. It might also fizzle out to nothing. In my opinion it is pretty 50/50 at the moment, but nobody knows for sure.
If you decide to stay on Magento 1, there’s also some other things you have to consider.
Some developers have already dropped support for Magento 1 and are focusing solely on Magento 2. And I can’t blame them. Really, I can’t. It makes sense you don’t want to support a platform that is nearing its end of life. Business wise it makes sense to focus on Magento 2.
That also means some modules won’t be developed for Magento 1 as the effort doesn’t match the reward. That will only get worse as times goes on and the Magento 1 userbase shrinks. That means you will be missing out on new modules, as they will only be developed for Magento 2.
It also means Magento 1 developers will become harder to come by as time goes on. Price follows demand, so don’t be surprised if your developer raises his prices.
And then there is the security issue. If you choose LTS, how fast will security holes be patched? No one knows. But you better hope they are faster than the criminals.
The future
As a merchant you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Move to Magento 2, to get essentially the same platform as you have today, only slightly fancier and with increased costs? At least you don’t have to worry about security and missing out on new features. But it comes with a price. And a hefty one at that.
You might be thinking, why even move to Magento 2, why not choose another platform? You could do that (and a lot of merchants have done it), but that is another headache in itself. One I won’t go into detail here.
Unfortunately Adobe have been pretty tightlipped about their future plans with Magento. Which is unfortunate, as it was the community and developers who made Magento what is is today. If they lose hope and abandon ship (which is already happening, as a lot of merchants are chosing other platforms over Magento 2), Magento will go one way. Down.