Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration and the urgent need to use a higher version

At the time of its appearance, the Magento platform was revolutionary in terms of architecture, which gave it the opportunity to bypass most competitors and become the most popular system for online stores in the world in three years. But this was back in 2007, so it is clear that over time the product has undergone a number of changes and improvements to stay on the leading edge. Since, according to statistics, more than 30% of all commercial sites now work on Magento, the development team managed to do something that qualitatively distinguishes this system from others. This mostly happened during its second large-scale iteration, after which the division into Magento 1 and Magento 2 appeared. The Avivi team has been working with this platform for a long time, so they know from their own experience about all the differences between the versions.

What is the most different?

As we wrote above, Magento 1 gained popularity primarily due to its latest architecture. Surprisingly, in the second version, the developers surpassed themselves and the updated architecture is one of the main advantages of Magento 2. This was achieved mostly by the development of the programming language. Magento is written in PHP, so the capabilities of the first version are limited to PHP 5.2. To be honest, it can be considered "ancient", because at the time of its widespread distribution, many necessary solutions were simply not invented yet. One of them is that system classes overlap others and contribute to conflicts. This "mess" is seen in many platforms created in the early 2000s that also used PHP versions 5 or lower. In some systems, such as, for example, two from Bitrix, the problem has not been solved until now.

Magento 1 is able to interact with modern technologies, but only passively. The system will not use anything that conflicts with system classes. Instead, Magento 2 is already developed on PHP 5.5, which greatly expands its capabilities and is compatible with newer versions of the programming language and HHVM. This allows high-quality integration with custom modules and avoids conflicts between them and the core. Thanks to this, the number of website errors decreases, productivity increases, comprehensive customization and integration with other platforms are possible.

As for the development, Magento 2 differs from the previous version in a much simplified process and the use of a number of auxiliary technologies that facilitate the tasks of developers, save time, and therefore money of customers. Among the main advantages:

• Git — the use of a public platform makes the process open to all interested parties and transparent to project customers;

• Composer — allows you to update the system more reliably and uniformly;

• Knockout is a basis for creating complex multi-functional interfaces;

• Less — simplifies styling of custom themes and custom modules;

• Unit tests are ready-made tests that look for weak points in the system to eliminate them and much more.

Thus, in order to avoid technical depths and complex comparisons, imagine that Magento 1 is a two-wheeled bicycle, and Magento 2 is at least a motorcycle, or even a comfortable modern car.

Migration to Magento 2 and its phasing

We can only congratulate new Magento users with a good choice of product and make every effort to ensure that your business develops quickly and efficiently with the help of our developers — you will already start operating on version 2. But if your commercial site was created long enough ago on Magento 1, delay with migration is not worth it. The official support for the first version ended back in 2020, which means that your IT component of the business is under constant threat, which increases with each passing day. The main advantages of upgrading are:

• Greater performance and security. Magento 2 is on average twice as fast as its "younger brother" and works better with saving passwords;

• Improved design of the admin panel. Now the tools are intuitive for both technical workers and ordinary managers;

• Guaranteed technical support and timely platform updates;

• Mobile version. Agree, now it is impossible without it;

• Improved overall interface and UX.

• The risk of kernel conflicts with plugins and modules is minimized.

As you can see, the advantages of Magento 2 are obvious. In addition, the product allows you to develop your project almost endlessly and in the direction that only you need for the next decades — this is exactly the perspective that the authors of Magento 2 put into their creation.

It is worth saying that the migration will not harm your customers in any way: by and large, they will only notice an improvement in the speed of your site, but nothing more. Over the years of working with technology, we have created and implemented a migration roadmap many times, which makes this process as fast and easy as possible. It looks like this:

1. Drawing up a personal migration roadmap: researching your project on Magento 1 and selecting the necessary Magento 2 functionality. Next, we install the platform on a test server and prepare for data migration. If you do not have the opportunity to deploy a server for development, Avivi will do it on its own virtual facilities;

2. First, the essentials. For a typical online store, this data includes products, customers, invoices, orders, and prices. After the transfer, we already understand the final volumes of data and can plan further work;

3. Installing extensions. We approve the list of additional components in advance, but now is the time to install new ones or move old ones. In Magento 2, many additional features of the older version have already become standard functionality, so it is often possible to achieve the desired result with ordinary settings;

4. Performance testing. Now it's time to make fine adjustments so that the system works quickly, clearly and harmoniously. Testing occurs automatically, but the final test is performed by experienced developers;

5. Migration of design elements and their optimization. If you do not want to change the design, we will adjust the existing graphics to the new conditions. But why not improve the appearance of your site now?

That's all. Now it remains to tell your employees about all the updates and transfer the finished site from "dev" to "prod". Our consultants guarantee you technical support at the beginning of using the updated version and answers to questions that may arise.

As you can see, the migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is not scary, not too long, but extremely responsible. So if you have such a need, let's solve it together. Avivi specialists will provide you with the latest version of the most popular platform for eCommerce development, save data and make the use of the site easy for employees and pleasant for your customers!