Like anything else that’s powerful and takes a market by storm, Magento is quite polarizing; folks either love it or hate it. It’s easy to find a reason to do either. In this post I’ll give you my very brief take about Magento’s trajectory as a platform and why you might want to .
Why users have been leaving Magento
Agencies say this: “Magento is the most robust open source ecommerce platform”.
Criticism on the street: “Magento is overly complicated and slow”.
What to believe?
In my experience, both statements are true!
Magento is truly amazing in that you can modify it and create large, complex stores with best-in-class features users expect.
However, Magento generally takes longer to set up, configure and develop on than [insert your favorite non-Magento platform here]. What’s more, non-technical managers may find their heads spinning with the dizzying array of extensions, layout and configuration choices Magento offers. Finally, even after successful launch, performance is very often a HUGE problem for Magento.
Of course, the first issue can be overcome with a solid implementation, the second with training and guidance, and the third with a knowledgeable devops team, but these don’t tend to be cheap. As a result, a lot of merchants have moved from Magento to simpler solutions like WooCommerce and Shopify. (until recently Magento was the market leader, but now WooCommerce is ahead by a few percent).
Why this trend is about to reverse
Magento 1 has been out since 2008 — with no major update. Efforts were begun on a version 2 of the application five years ago but progress was p.ain..ful..ly slow for a long time. Then something seemed to spark within the Magento team…they “got on the ball” and now we have a Merchant Beta, with General Availability slated for Q4 2015. In other words, it’s almost prime time.
Wanna see how it looks? Here’s a demo put together by our friends at Nexcess.
What’s better, you ask, about Magento 2? Answer: Just about everything. The Magento team have given the platform a total reboot / refresh. Here are some of the things I’m most excited about from a business use case standpoint:
- It’s able to handle WAY more throughput.
- The application is finally fully responsive in the front and backend (applause please!).
- Performance nerds are going to be happy — static browser content caching, image compression, use of jQuery, and RequireJS for better management of JavaScript and bundling to reduce file download counts.
- The backend has been completely redesigned and has a large number of improvements.
- The frontend is 25% faster in general and 52% faster on add to cart.
- It’s more modular and as a result much better to develop custom functionality on.
- It’s no longer monolithic…it’s possible to install only some of the components, making it more streamlined and more feasible to power ecommerce within an existing project.
- My personal favorite: the checkout now exhibits best practices. To be honest it’s still not as slick as Bonobos or even a stock Shopify checkout, but it’s way better than it was.
This is a really short list on purpose. If you’ve been unimpressed or concerned about Magento, it might be time to think again! Please feel free to email me your response or questions about Magento 2 versus whatever you’re on now.
P.S. Quick note about timeline: while the Merchant Beta is already out, the optimal time for most merchants to upgrade will probably be around May/June 2016. If you’re already on Magento, make sure to take a good look at the Magento 1 to 2 Migration plan; it’s a pretty in-depth process.
P.P.S. Hoping this post was longer? If you’re that eager, check out some more technical benefits of Magento 2.