Upgrade to Magento 2.4.6 for Next-level Ecommerce Experience

2023 has been a great start for all the Magento developers out there. As it marked the release of the latest version of Magento 2.4.6 in the market. Not only the developers but business owners are also thrilled and ready to embrace the newly added features to improve their website’s credibility.

There is no doubt about the popularity of Magento, making it one of the top-prioritized tech-led eCommerce platforms. And with the release of the new version, you will encounter improved workflow and amplified performance of your platform. Well, it seems pretty tempting what Magento 2.4.6 has bundled for all of us. 

With more than 300 fixes and improvements, Magento 2.4.6 is now available to use and creates a significant difference for every eCommerce business. If you are struggling to upgrade to Magento 2.4.6, then you must look out for Magento development companies and hire Magento 2 developers to compete in high-end online businesses.

Let’s start with Magento and its benefits for today’s modern-age business requirements.

What is Magento?

In 2008, Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner launched Magento, an e-commerce solution known for its extensive customization options. Within two years, eBay acquired 49% of the company and eventually bought the remaining shares. After eBay and PayPal separated in 2015, Magento regained its independence. In 2018, Adobe acquired Magento for $1.68 billion, securing its position and ensuring a prosperous future in ecommerce.

Magento remains an open-source project embraced by a thriving community while also serving as Adobe Commerce, a comprehensive ecommerce platform for medium and large businesses.

Before Adobe acquired Magento, there were two versions of Magento for businesses: Magento Community (Open-Source) and Magento Enterprise (Paid Version). Now, Adobe owns Magento Commerce, and the Magento Enterprise version is renamed Adobe Commerce, a platform as a service. Fortunately, Magento 2 Open Source is still accessible as the Magento Community version.

Exciting Magento Market Stats

• Magento’s market share is 0.8% of all known websites.

• the feature-rich Magento platform is downloaded 5,000 times a day

• Magento (Adobe Commerce) platform is currently used by over 239,000 live websites.

• Roughly 38% use Magento 2, while the remaining 62% use Magento.

• 3700+ extensions are present in its official marketplace.

Why Hiring Magento 2 Developers Makes Magento an Incredibly Popular Platform

Below are the significant reasons that businesses and developers are using it for feeding their modern-age e-Commerce business needs. 

If you still have any doubts about the popularity of Magento, then take a look at its advantages. To leverage all of its capabilities, hire magento web developer.

• Flexibility and Customization

Magento offers extensive customization options, allowing merchants to tailor their online stores according to their specific business requirements. It provides a modular architecture, enabling developers to extend and modify the platform's functionality as needed.

• Open-source Nature

Magento is an open-source platform, which means its source code is freely available. This allows developers to customize the platform, create custom extensions, and integrate with other systems or services. The open-source community contributes to its continuous improvement and expansion.

• Scalability and Performance

Magento is built to handle large-scale e-commerce operations. It can efficiently manage thousands of products, handle high traffic loads, and support multiple storefronts from a single backend. With proper server configuration and optimization, Magento can deliver fast loading times and excellent performance.

• Multi-store and Multi-language Support

Merchants can create and manage multiple online stores using a single Magento installation. This feature is particularly useful for businesses with different brands, product lines, or regional stores. Additionally, Magento supports multiple languages and currencies, allowing merchants to cater to a global customer base.

• Rich Feature Set

Magento offers a comprehensive set of features to support various aspects of e-commerce, including product management, inventory management, order processing, payment gateways, shipping methods, and customer service. It also includes advanced marketing and promotional tools, SEO capabilities, and analytics for tracking store performance.

• Mobile-Friendly and Responsive

In today's mobile-driven world, having a mobile-friendly online store is crucial. Magento provides responsive design themes and mobile optimization features, ensuring a seamless shopping experience across different devices.

• Integration and Extension Options

Magento can be integrated with third-party systems such as payment gateways, shipping carriers, ERP systems, and CRM platforms. It also has a vast marketplace called Magento Marketplace, offering a wide range of extensions and plugins to enhance the platform's functionality.

• Community and Support

Magento has a thriving community of developers, partners, and merchants who actively contribute to its growth and share their knowledge. Additionally, Adobe provides official technical support, documentation, and training resources to assist merchants and developers.

• Adobe Magento forum boasts 470,000 members.

• Magento 2 GitHub repository thrives with 1,533 active contributors.

• LinkedIn houses 157,000 Magento professionals.

• 13,000+ global companies/agencies cater to Magento/Adobe Commerce.

These features are capable of creating an amazing experience for all users who are coming to a website from searching to a seamless transaction process. What else can any business owner want? Do you know even the op-giants of the market are leveraging the fruitful benefits of Magento?

The Success of Top Giants Using Magento

Below are the companies that are leveraging the true potential of Magento and have gained success. Let’s see how Magento has helped them solve their challenges.

ALDO

A footwear and accessories company since 1972 with more than 3k stores globally.

Challenges-

Aldo aimed to create an A-List loyalty program to satisfy the Southeast Asia market's demand for trendy shoes at reasonable prices. The program would reward loyal customers with exclusive offers, discounts, and tiered benefits for both offline and online shopping, along with special pricing for members.

Aldo sought a solution that provides rapid scalability, integrates with its CRM system, and deploys localized online sites across regions.

Solution- 

Aldo chose Magento Commerce, the top solution for their website needs, to meet all their requirements:

• Run multiple websites on a single database

• Customize experiences for each country

• Ensure a smooth omnichannel experience

• Handle intricate loyalty programs

• Seamlessly integrate with present and future systems

Results-

• 6 weeks for implementation

• 200% more orders

• 15% lower ownership costs

Catbird 

A New York company, creating on-demand Custom jewelry since 2004.

Challenges-

Catbird successfully used Magento Commerce 1 for their online store, delivering a smooth desktop shopping experience. However, as young customers shifted to mobile shopping, Catbird aimed to transform their mobile commerce to align with their brand's fun, elegant, and highly functional nature.

Solution-

Catbird decided to upgrade to Magento Commerce 2 in 2018. They utilized the top Magento website features to enhance their mobile-centric eCommerce approach. 

• Real-time inventory updates alert customers about product availability.

• Instant delivery option for customers requiring an immediate receipt.

• Modify gift messages for personalized wishes when sending gifts.

• Create personalized product collections and save them for future reference.

• Catbird utilized Magento Commerce 2's responsive design for a visually appealing website on mobile devices. They developed a distinct mobile theme for a seamless multi-channel experience.

Results-

• 45% rise in mobile transactions

• 39% surge in mobile revenue

• 51.52% enhancement in mobile conversion

I guess, we have made our point about how Magento is changing business outlook by helping companies get more clients, improving performance, and more conversions. 

Now, Magento 2 is getting better and better leaving its loopholes behind to provide a more seamless e-Commerce experience to end customers and business owners. With the new release of Magento 2.4.6, the game has changed now.

Are you excited to learn what Magento 2.4.6 is offering? Let’s find out with us.

Magento 2.4.6 Features- Changing e-Commerce Game

On the 14th of March, 2023, Magento 2.4.6 was released as promised. This new version brings exciting performance enhancements that developers and business owners will appreciate. Notably, these improvements and issue fixes will have an impact on the performance of third-party extensions. As a result, developers and providers will need to invest considerable time and effort into updating their plugins to ensure compatibility with the new Magento version.

The release of Magento 2.4.6 was highly anticipated for its major performance updates, which included more than 300 upgrades. Store owners were particularly hopeful for improved performance and the app’s scalability. However, the new version exceeded expectations, offering more improvements than initially announced. Notably, Magento 2.4.6 introduces PHP 8.2, replacing PHP 7.4, and will also support PHP 8.1.

Let’s dive into more details about newly added features and hire magento 2 developers for seamless implementation.

Cheaper Ownership to Magento

Adobe has extended support for recent Magento versions, providing security patches for the next three years from their release. As per the new policy, Magento 2.4.6 will get relevant patches till March 14, 2026. 

Adobe's extended assistance aims to assist Magento e-Commerce business owners in minimizing their overall ownership expenses. 

As part of this effort, Adobe has altered the patch release schedule, issuing one comprehensive app patch per year for relevant quality improvements. Additionally, the frequency of security patch releases has been gone from 3- 4 times annually, further reducing ownership costs.

Improved Security Features

Adobe prioritizes bolstering Magento platform security, evident in Magento 2.4.6's multiple enhancements. Key updates include:

• Eight security fixes & platform security fixes (Adobe Security Bulletin).

• Improved Admin action logs with specific cross-checking of admin actions.

• Resolved issue with failing of reCAPTCHA validation while processing transactions and payments.

• Added setting for email confirmation on admin user email changes, which is disabled until you enable it.

Magento 2.4.6 now supports PHP 8.2, while maintaining full compatibility with PHP 8.1. The addition of PHP 8.2 enhances security in Magento, thanks to its numerous security enhancements.

• The class can be declared as read-only to prevent object modification after initialization.

• Read-only objects can be safely made public without risking breakage.

• Simplified execution of parameterized MySQLi queries.

• Eliminates the need for risky user value escaping in database queries.

• Conceals sensitive parameter values from backtraces.

• PHP 8.2 introduces the \SensitiveParameterValue object to hide sensitive parameter values during exceptions.

• Enhances code execution security.

Enhanced Platform Settings

If you use this version, you will see the performance difference yourself. So What has changed now? Let’s see the new enhancements.

• Magento 2.4.6 is compatible with PHP 8.2 version and other PHP 8 versions.

• Upgrading the server environment to PHP 8.x is necessary for the continued support of Magento 2.4.6.

• Magento 2.4 with PHP 7.4 needs to be updated to PHP 8 for compatibility with Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 upgrade.

• Supports Composer 2.2.x.

• ElasticSearch 8.x and Redis 7.0.x are supported in the new version.

• Redis 6.2 remains compatible until April 2024.

• MariaDB 10.6 is a long-term support version, recommended to upgrade from MariaDB 10.4.

• DHL scheme migrated from version 6.2 to version 10.0.

• Outdated dependencies were removed and updated Java and JavaScript libraries.

Enhanced Performance and Scalability

The main goal of this release is to enhance the app’s performance. The platform has been improved for easier use by Merchants, allowing them to complete bulk operations quickly. 

The Magento 2.4.6 update specifically focuses on performance enhancements, offering support for.

Category Children Tree Processing

The latest release introduces enhancements to the category processing system, specifically targeting nested children trees. This enables merchants to efficiently handle categories with nested children trees, resulting in notable performance improvements. The system has been restructured to boost loading response time, leading to faster and more efficient operations. As a result, over 1500 categories can now be easily searched, streamlining merchant activities.

Improved response time for Bulk Cart Operation 

To expedite bulk cart operations, query response times have been optimized. This means that the shopping cart can now accommodate 500+ simple or configurable items to be added swiftly.

Scalability Enhancements: Magento 2.4.6 offers beneficial features for store owners in terms of scalability.

Enhanced Order Processing

Magento Open Source/Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 can handle and process up to 1000 simultaneous orders per minute, which translates to 15 orders per second. This is made possible through a custom database load-balancing configuration.

Improved Product Import Performance

The REST API now includes a new endpoint, /rest/import/csv, which significantly enhances import performance, enabling the processing of up to 100,000 records per minute.

Enhanced Accessibility: Magento Web Developer

Magento 2.4.6 has improved the Venia (PWA) retail experience, making it more accessible, functional, understandable, and resilient. Noteworthy enhancements are included. If you are new to these features, then you can take expert assistance and hire magento web developer.

• The Sign-in button stands out with a visually appealing text label that goes with its name, making it easy to remember.

• Now you can assign descriptive names to Shop buttons for a better understanding of their purpose.

• You will get verbal descriptions for the "Has Video" checkboxes that you can access from search filters.

• full-page functionality is accessible to Keyboard-only users.

• Magento version 2.4.6 supports PWA Studio v.13.0.x, bringing exciting possibilities for users.

• Sub-navigation links can be effortlessly accessed using keystrokes, ensuring a seamless browsing experience.

• These remarkable improvements in Magento 2.4.6 have been specifically designed with the needs of users with special requirements in mind.

Advanced GraphQL Performance 

You will experience a notable difference in the performance of GraphQL. The reasons are-

• Faster response times for product queries in categories that have category permissions and multiple customer groups or shared item catalogs.

• GraphQL resolver task for better performance.

• Enhanced product permissions by applying them to item collections instead of individual products, resulting in improved performance.

• Introduction of new "deleteCustomer" mutations.

• Improved response time for rendering category trees in GraphQL, particularly for categories with category permissions enabled.

• Enhanced response time for bulk cart operations through GraphQL.

Upgraded BrainTree Payment Option

Some improvements have been made to provide a seamless and secure transaction and payment facility.

• Exciting news for Italy and Spain: Pay Later buttons and banners are now live!

• Introducing LPM webhook, making local payment methods even more accessible.

• Enhancing security: Fraud Protection and ACH webhooks have been implemented.

• PayLater messaging is now active for the PayPal Vault, offering convenient payment options.

PWA Studio and Page Builder support.

• Page Builder v.1.7.3 is now compatible with Magento Open Source 2.4.6.

• PWA Studio v.13.0.x is now compatible with Magento Open Source 2.4.6.

OpenSearch can replace ElasticSearch

Magento 2.4.6 introduces OpenSearch as a new default search option, alongside ElasticSearch. OpenSearch v2.x is supported and has been tested with Magento 2.4.6. To differentiate between ElasticSearch and OpenSearch, certain changes have been made to the software code, such as removing the ConnectionManager virtual type. This change is not backward compatible, which means modules relying on it may not function properly in Magento 2.4.6. 

Considering ongoing community contributions, ElasticSearch might be a preferable long-term choice for a Magento store.

Additional Enhancements/Key Features

Other key features that no one can ignore and are important for improving overall performance. 

Improved cache efficiency

In this new version, you'll notice that when an order is done, the full-page cache remains intact, ensuring swift access to your website. However, for orders containing out-of-stock items, the cache will be automatically cleared, guaranteeing accurate and up-to-date information.

That's not all! The enhanced functionality also includes clever optimization for stock changes. If you have relevant items in stock and their quantity changes, the category page cache will no longer be invalidated. Instead, only the specific product quantities will be updated, resulting in lightning-fast loading times for your store pages. No more waiting for page regeneration like before!

Stores with huge customer bases also work seamlessly

Magento 2.4.6 enhances store performance for 100+ customer segments by introducing a new setting called "Real-time Check if Customer is Matched by Segment." Disabling this setting boosts performance by reducing the validation of customer segments against customers.

Better import

The New Magento version introduces a POST /rest/<store_view_code>/V1/import/csv REST API endpoint that boosts import speed to 100k records/minute. It shares features with Admin import and enables CSV files used for creating, updating, and removing products, pricing, and customers.

Improved cart and checkout workflow

• Enhancing the shopping experience: you can now add an extra item to your cart, even if the cart has exceeded the minimum required quantity of a simple product.

• Seamless refunds: Orders that received a shipping discount will now have their refunds calculated accurately, ensuring customer satisfaction.

• Streamlined ordering process: Shoppers no longer have to select the Google ReCAPTCHA before placing an order, making the process more convenient and user-friendly.

• Smooth confirmation: The anticipated confirmation popup now appears exactly as expected, providing users with a clear indication of their actions.

• Improved usability: When customers modify an item’s quality from the cart webpage and go to the other webpage without even updating the cart, they will be prompted with the expected confirmation popup.

• Flexibility in quantity adjustment: Shoppers can now decrease the quantity of a product from their cart, even if it was limited by the manager.

• Enhanced security and permissions: The system now checks the customer's group permission to prevent them from adding a product to the cart from a specific category they are not allowed to access.

• Preserving cart contents: If an order is dropped, the cart items are automatically restored, ensuring that items are only removed from the cart after an order is successfully created.

Product Catalog Enhancements

Below are the new improvements that can be seen in Magento 2.4.6.

• Enhanced User Experience: Customers who are logged in will now have the privilege of viewing accurate prices, eliminating any confusion caused by cached prices displayed previously.

• Mobile-Friendly Navigation: Shoppers using mobile devices can now conveniently expand categories containing subcategories, providing a seamless browsing experience that was previously unavailable on mobile devices.

• Real-Time Price Updates: The item price indexer gets updates automatically with a specific item gets assigned to a new store, ensuring that prices are always up-to-date. Previously, relying on Cron for updates sometimes resulted in missing or inaccurate prices, but not anymore!

But that is not it. These are the enhancements that will come with Magento 2.4.6. Apart from this, Magento has gone over 300 upgrades to improve the platform capabilities, such as bolster modules integrated with Google, and others.

Let’s take a look at some of those important ones.

Magento 2.4.6 fixes 

Some key fixes to note are-

• Improved Magento installation, upgrade, and deployment to enhance performance.

• API now supports bulk product updates without errors in the grid.

• Enhanced accessibility of the button workflow in the Checkout and Review order process using keyboard inputs.

• The full-page cache is only flushed if the ordered product is out of stock.

• Successful caching of data when L2 cache is configured.

• Improved functionality of displaying Out of Stock Products on the storefront inventory when the option is enabled.

• Admins can add multiple simple products with a salable quantity of 0 to a configurable product in their shopping cart.

• Shoppers can add multiple simple products to an existing configurable product without encountering the error message: "Something went wrong with a default view."

• Duplicate emails are no longer sent to customers after an order is created from the Admin in Adobe Commerce.

• Merchants can now specify a custom external SMTP provider for communication.

• Customers who exceed the maximum login failed attempts can regain access after a password reset.

• Accurate calculation of shipping rates for FedEx, USPS, and UPS when the Free Shipping Cart rule is set to apply only to specific items in the cart.

• Upgraded outdated JavaScript libraries to the latest versions.

Now that we have mentioned all the features and advancements of Magento 2.4.6. I am sure that you might be willing to experience its benefits too and take your business to the next level.

Am I correct?

I suggest considering a few things before you want to migrate to Magento 2.4.6 or build from scratch.

Things to consider before upgrading to Magento 2.4.6

Planning to upgrade your Magento business? Hold on a moment! Don't forget the crucial step of enabling maintenance mode. Trust me, this small but mighty precaution is paramount to maintaining stability and safeguarding your valuable data. Once the upgrade is complete, simply disable the maintenance mode.

Likewise, before diving into the enticing realm of Magento 2.4.6, it's imperative to ensure that all your essential extensions are updated also. Neglecting this vital task could render them incompatible with the latest Magento release, hampering your progress.

If you've made the wise decision to migrate/upgrade your store to Magento 2.4.6, congratulations! However, before embarking on this exciting journey, it's crucial to double-check that you meet all the necessary system requirements. This step ensures a smooth transition and sets the stage for a successful upgrade experience.

Make sure you understand the basic system required to get along with the smooth transition. If you are still struggling, then you must hire Magento developers.

System Requirements for Seamless Upgrade to Magento 2.4.6

Requirements have changed and make sure to have a complete setup beforehand. If you are not that into technical aspects, then opt for Magento developers for hire.

• Apache 2.4 

• AWS Aurora (MySQL) 8.0 

• AWS MQ 3.9.13 

• AWS OpenSearch 1.2 

• Composer 2.2 

• Elasticsearch 8.x 

• MySQL 8.0 

• MariaDB 10.6 

• OpenSearch 2.5, and OpenSearch 2.x  

• PHP 8.2 or 8.1 

• RabbitMQ 3.9 

• Redis 7.0 

• Varnish 7.1 

• Nginx 1.18 

Are you done setting up now? Let’s get you upgraded.

Hire magento developers to Upgrade to Magento 2.4.6

Upgrading the app to the new version needs new system settings and enabling extensions to make it work seamlessly. So, make sure to create a backup of your existing application so that you can recover it in case of failure. 

To get there correctly to Magento 2.4.6, follow the process.

Step 1- Enable Maintenance Mode

Use the below command to switch to maintenance mode.

Step 2- Create a backup of the composer.json file

Create a backup for existing apps and databases. Set the staging environment and then deploy to prod later.

Step 3- Upgrade required packages 

Upgrade all the packages as mentioned in the system requirements accordingly. 

Step 4- Magento Upgrade using Composer

To upgrade Adobe Commerce from version 2.4.5 to 2.4.6, you can utilize Composer. Note that starting from Adobe Commerce 2.4.2, Composer 2 is necessary for upgrades beyond version 2.4.2.

If your current Adobe Commerce version is older than 2.4.1, you must first upgrade to a compatible version (e.g., 2.4.2) using Composer 1, before proceeding to upgrade to Composer 2 for versions above 2.4.2.

Ensure PHP is a supported version to avoid compatibility issues.

Now upgrade your composer.

composer require magento/composer-root-update-plugin ~2.0 --no-update

composer update

composer -v

Now run any of the two below commands.

composer require-commerce magento/product-community-edition --no-update

Or

composer require-commerce magento/product-enterprise-edition --no-update

Install the required versin (Magento 2.4.6)

composer require-commerce magento/product-community-edition 2.4.6 --no-update

Step 5- Update the Composer

Step 6- Update Database schema and data

Run the following.

php bin/magento setup:upgrade

php bin/magento setup:di:compile

Now, run the following for seamless upgrade.

php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f

php bin/magento cache:clean

Step 7- Disable Maintenance mode

Run the below command.

php bin/magento maintenance:disable

Now, you are ready to migrate your apps and scale your business. But the migration is not as smooth as it is looking, you can go for hire offshore magento developers. You might come across some challenges. Let’s understand why those problems occur.

Problems you might face while Upgradation

Before upgrading to Magento 2.4.6, it's important to verify if your needed extensions are compatible with this version. Magento 2.4.6 introduces significant dependency changes, some of which are not backward compatible. Here are the main changes.

The introduction of Magento 2.4.6 brings significant changes that are not compatible with previous libraries and third-party components it utilizes. This is mainly because these components are no longer supported. 

• Zend_Filter replaced with laminas-filter

• Zend_HTTP replaced with laminas-http

• Zend_Validate replaced with laminas-validator

As a result, numerous bundled modules in Magento, such as Magento_GoogleAdwords (backend), Magento_Framework, Magento_Payment, Magento_Backend, Magento_Search, Magento_LayeredNavigation, and Magento_Downloadable, are affected by the transition to new libraries.

To ensure compatibility, third-party extensions relying on these affected Magento modules or replaced libraries need to be updated. Consequently, upgrading to Magento 2.4.6 may require considerable effort and resources. Developers will need ample time for making the modules compatible with the new Magento.

Migration of any app is never easy if you do it yourself. It is always better to have an expert assisting you or doing it for you. So look out for Magento developers for hire and make things easier.

Hire Magento 2 developer with OnGraph

At OnGraph, we have a team of expert professionals who are consistently delivering value globally. With our high-end e-commerce solutions businesses are scaling with top-notch performance and improved customer experience. 

So, if you are struggling to get along with Magento's new version, then you can simply connect with us, drop your requirements, and hire offshore Magento developers. We will be happy to help you with extended support and maintenance. 

Thank you for reading this article. Please let us know if you found it helpful or if you require any of our IT solutions.