To all the Magento 1 users out there who are still using the software, as you should already be very well aware, Magento 1’s shelf life is coming to an end in June 2020. We are certainly hoping you already know this and if not, your web development agency has been rather naughty. 

At the end of June 2020, Magento 1 will no longer be supported by Magento and Adobe. It will still be accessible and usable but the official support will cease. There are lots of reasons running an unsupported Magento is not a good idea:

Loss of Security

Security is a paramount issue when you run an eCommerce website, regardless of size. Without the support of Magento and the regular release of security patches, it will be very difficult to keep your site secure and prevent any known vulnerabilities being exploited. Hackers will know when the patches have stopped coming so they will inevitably target Magento 1 sites. It is a sad truth. 

These security patches come pretty regularly. In the past 2 years, there have been over 16 security patches, which works out at approximately one every 6 weeks and they fix a good number of security issues at a time. 

Third-Party Extensions and Themes

As Magento 1 comes to its end, the development of third party extensions and themes will slowly cease. Many developers will have already stopped building them and contributing to the Magento Marketplace. This will leave Magento 1 users without new extensions and themes and the responsibility of fixing and maintaining current ones. 

So, Magento 1 users, it seems you have three options:

1. Upgrade to the Magento 2 platform

This will probably seem like the most logical next step. No one really likes change and if you are used to Magento 1 you will likely want to go to Magento 2. However, Magento 2 is a completely different platform. Themes and extensions are also completely new.

If you are looking to move to Magento 2 opensource, formerly known as Magento Community, you need to be aware of some of the issues that have lately arisen:

The ongoing costs of updates, development, and integrations

Security patches are now only provided for the latest Magento 2 versions and have since been rolled in with the version upgrades. These upgrades take a huge amount of development time which makes them very costly for you the customer and given their frequency, the costs are racking up. Unfortunately, these patches are by far the best way to keep a Magento 2 site secure. There are options of relying on third-party services which attempt to plug the gaps if you chose not to stay on the latest version, however, these still have additional costs and can’t cover all issues.

It is a demanding system

Magento requires a lot of development, customisation and maintenance. It also needs some serious server power to run as well as multiple specialised technologies to be available on the hosting platform. Again, costly. If you are to look at the fees for having and running a site for say, 3 years, it would be a pretty penny (and then a load more pennies until we are way, way up wondering why we counted in pennies). 

Support? Not so much

There are thousands of open Magento support tickets and with that, there is a queue. It is long and in the end, you might not get much support at all. Official fixes for core bugs can take months to appear, often forcing developers to spend time, and hence more money, fixing these rather than building bespoke functionality.

So, you do not fancy Magento 2? We don’t blame you. Let us look at your next option:

2. Move across to a different system altogether

Now, isn’t this an exciting option! Brand new. Completely different. New name. New loyalty. But which one? There are so many! Don’t we know it? WooCommerce has the most hacks and Shopify sites you never actually own so these should be crossed out. Surely you have crossed them out? 

What is left? Shameless plug time but our eCommerce platform of choice is Coaster. Built on the wonderful language of Laravel and with the user in mind, there is no platform that is easier to use. What is not to love? Many of our old and newer Magento customers are moving across to Coaster and never looking back. Now that is a resolution that we love.

3. Stay on Magento 1 and hope for the best

In light of everything written above, we can not recommend this option. It is inevitably frustrating to be ousted from a platform you are probably very happy with. Therefore it is understandable if you have considered hunkering down and hoping to continue your time on Magento 1. We do not blame you. We loved M1 and will be sad to see it go.

If you do have any concerns or questions, please contact us and we would be happy to help.