By now, almost all ecommerce stores running on Magento 1.x versions either must have or might be on the verge of making a decision to either migrate or replatform their store. If you haven’t yet thought about it, it is a good time to do before it becomes too late. Running an ecommerce business is not an easy task and even small delays could drastically hurt your business.
However, this train of thoughts followed the fact when Magento launched the second version of its platform i.e. Magento 2. Although, initially it didn’t seem that bad, it definitely shifted the Magento team’s focus from the first versions to the second one making their efforts to make it better. Due to this, a lot of complaints and performance issues have aroused among the version 1.X users.
So before we get to decide whether upgrading or re-platforming would be a better option for you, let’s have a look at why it is time to let go of your Magento 1.X platform.
Why it’s time to leave the Magento 1.X platform?
1. No Technical Support for Magento 1.X: The first and foremost reason is that the Magento team itself will abandon the first version of the platform. Near the end of 2018, the Magento team will cease support for vendors using version 1.X which itself should be a good enough reason to change it. This basically means that you won’t be able to fix any bugs in your software or even resolve any other kind of issues that may come up. Some expert ecommerce developers might be able to help you out a little in this matter, but with their support too will be limited to an extent.
Magento 1.X will not extended for any new features: The ecommerce market is increasingly competent nowadays. People are frequently coming up with new ways to improve their selling strategies and improve customer experience. Not being able to implement new features and keep up with the competition will literally become a nightmare for store owners. This is surely something you wouldn’t want for yourself.
No more security updates: Even now, security seems to be slacking a little in Magento 1.X stores since their focus has been completely on Magento 2. After this period, all Magento 1.X ecommerce stores will be completely vulnerable to malicious attacks that could harm your website in a number of ways. The fact that Magento is open source adds significantly to the threat.
Although there are more, these are the prime reasons why it’s best to leave your Magento 1.X store behind and either upgrade to Magento 2 or re-platform your store.
Is it time to upgrade to Magento 2?
The short answer to this would be that you should definitely start thinking about it if you haven’t yet. Deciding whether you would benefit more from an upgrade or a re-platforming is a whole other thought process you will have to go through.
As mentioned earlier, Magento 1.X versions will face a lot of issues and won’t be able to keep up with the market trends. To top that, having absolutely no support from the Magento community will not help the situation. So the timing is definitely great right now, while you still have sufficient time and support from Magento.
However, the Magento 2 is a fairly young platform. While the Magento team is definitely working towards making it better, it still is facing a lot of issues. A lot of Magento 2 users have reported coming face to face with a lot of bugs in the code very frequently. Also, the Magento 2 community is very small for now, so not a lot of modules for advanced features are available yet.
Waiting for Magento’s end of life too is not that great of an option as it will be fraught with problems as well. You’ll have to rush to meet the deadline and might end up with a store that’s undergone a really rushed transition which might end up in a really buggy new store, at least for the initial months.
Is it time to re-platform your store?
So with all the issues going around with Magento 1.X and Magento 2, could re-platforming be a viable solution? Well, it definitely seems like a great option. After all, you will be investing a lot of time and money anyway, so re-platforming could be an easy solution too.
There are a number of eCommerce platforms that you can choose to go with. Choosing best one however, depends on a number of factors like your business goals, the store that you run, the kind and amount of products you sell etc. It will be best to consult an ecommerce development company to help you out in the process though. However, whichever platform you choose to go with, you will still have some advantages like:
1. Be a part of a more mature market: With a more mature market, you can definitely find some new and exciting features to use for your store regularly. It will also help you keep up to date with the latest market trends.
2. Have better security protocols: With the growing threats of malware attacks, security is definitely a matter of high concern for any online business. Re-platforming will definitely help you stay safe from any such attacks.
3. Immediate Store Launch: Since the platform you choose would have been around for a while, you will be able to migrate to it rather quickly and launch your store seamlessly. Bugs and integrating new features won’t be much trouble for it. There a lot more advantages, however these are the major ones that definitely prove to be a direct advantage over magento.
Final Thoughts
Choosing to re-platform or simply upgrading to Magento2 is decision which is entirely dependent on you and your business goals. However, Making a decision immediately is of utmost importance. Not long from now Magento Magento 1.X will be rendered redundant making it an immensely difficult for you to run your store on it which something you definitely don’t want to go through.
The time right now is a great opportunity to gain a strategic advantage over others by either migrating your platform or at least upgrading to something better.
What kind of websites or databases usually provide an interface allowing you to scrap their data?
Is this applicable even for those using the Enterprise version of Magento? Would Magento be providing any support to their enterprise users?
Yes. the same is applicable to Magento Enterprise Edition users also. They too will have to upgrade to the 2.0 version. So far, there has been no statement in terms of special support by the Magento team for enterprise users. There probably won’t be.
The Magento open source edition is a pretty cost effective solution for new ecommerce stores. If such stores wish to replatform, what other cost effective options do they have?
Speaking purely in terms of low costs, some open source options include OpenCart, PrestaShop, ZenCart, plugins for WordPress websites like WooCommerce or JigoShop,etc.
How exactly would the security of Magento stores be affected after they stop support?
@Shailene Dudely Being an open source platform, a number of attackers can come up with plugins that can create backdoors into your website and easily extract data from your site. Since the Magento team will not be launching any security updates, it won’t be possible to prevent the attacks that would be using newer techniques of spamming or malware infections.