We have not recommended our customers to migrate to M2 until the end of second quarter 2016. It had more issues and marketplaces had not caught up with M2 release. But now it is time. Here are the reasons businesses can rationalize, if this upgrade/rebuilt is for them.
Magento 2 (M2) is faster and here are the reasons ‘why?’
- M2 supports PHP 7. This version of Php is has proven performance gains (in some case 2 times) over previous PHP releases.
- The new default indexers in Magento 2 include all of the functionality as in the previous enterprise versions. The difference is that they come with more efficient updates and have been improved to speed up the query performance.
- M2 introduced Varnish cache system (inbuilt in the product, both community and Enterprise) and that facilitates full page caching. Varnish reduces server load and improves website speed by providing a cached version of pages from your site.
- M2 provides a free New Relic Extension on the Magento Marketplace. The Merchant can review site performance and can find server bottleneck easily.
Magento 2 has a bunch of features that are good for better conversion ratios
- Enriched product merchandising with the ability to easily add YouTube and Vimeo videos.
- New responsive design (frontend and backend) reference themes that enable merchants to create seamless shopping experiences across any device in half the time.
- A redesigned checkout flow that is easier to customize and increases conversion rates with a new order summary and by reducing the number of steps from 5 to 2.
- Automatic recognition of registered customers in checkout based on their email address so they can complete purchases faster using their saved profile information.
- One-click account creation from the order Thank You page to encourage customer registrations without interrupting the checkout process.
- Improved security and easier PCI compliance through new integrations with PayPal, Braintree and Authorize.net.
Magento2 has following new business tools/functions for Magento Administrators
- Redesigned Magento Admin user interface that saves time when managing day-to-day tasks and is intuitive for new team members to learn.
- Drag-and-drop tools that let merchants effortlessly customize and save Admin panel views for quick access to important product, customer, and order data.
- New step-by-step product creation tool that makes it easier to configure products and gathers all necessary information.
- Improved product importing and exporting that handles an expanded data set and is 4x faster than M1.
M2 architecture includes
- Enhanced theming and layout framework to quickly create and maintain site variations for seasonal campaigns, new product lines, and market expansions.
- Easier upgrades so merchants can quickly add new functionality as it becomes available through quarterly releases.
The Universal Truth
- Magento team stopped adding new features to Magento 1.x. This happened on Nov 17th 2015 right after M2 release. Now old Magento 1.x versions will receive only security updates.
- Magento team will stop maintaining and supporting Magento 1.x after last quarter 2018. During Magento Imagine 2014 conference, they said 2018 will probably be the last year you will see security patches released for old M1.x versions.
