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Using Magento 1.X after June 2020 will prove to be the most dangerous thing for your online eCommerce business. Let me be clear here that if you decide to continue using Magento 1, then you may lose all the reputation and credibility you have built over the years. You must be thinking, what’s the worst that could happen?
We know you have lots of questions in your mind, so here is what you can expect from this article.
- How long will Magento 1 be supported?
- What if I continue to use Magento 1?
- Your Life as Magento 1 Store owner
- Do I need to migrate to Magento 2?
- What does Magento Experts Say?
Now let’s move further and see what happens if you continue to use Magento 1.
How long will Magento 1 be supported?
According to the official Magento Website, Magento 1 life will be ended by June 2020. That means you will no longer receive any security or feature updates from Magento Inc no matter you have Community or Enterprise Editon. But if you continue using Magento 1 even after end of life, here are some things/disadvantages that you may face.
Disadvantages of using Magento 1.X after EOL in June 2020:
- Magento 1.X will stop receiving any quality and security upgrade or patches.
- Your store will start to degrade and decay after the end of life support.
- You won’t easily find the suitable extensions for your Magento 1.X store.
- Many of Magento developing agencies or new-age developers are focusing only on Magento 2, so finding the right developers for your Magento 1.X development/customization will be a challenging job.
- Even if there are developers who work with Magento 1.x, it would be just a handful of them, and their charge for any development work will cost you more than the development of Magento 2.
- There is a potential threat of hackers and spammers stealing your customers’ data like payment and credit card information.
Apart from these things, there are numerous other hidden things and disadvantages that could happen if you do not move to Magento 2. But completely opposite to Magento 1, there are lots of benefits that you can leverage by migrating to Magento 2.
What if I continue to use Magento 1 after End of Life 2020?
- Your Store would be at Risk without Quality and Security Fixes
Magento has announced that it will end the life support for both Open Source and Commerce editions formerly known as Community and Enterprise editions of Magento 1.X. Till June 30, 2020, Magento is active for searching and fixing potential threats and vulnerabilities every six to eight weeks in Magento 1.X. After June 30, Magento will not take care of any bugs and issues found with Magento 1.X stores.
Without the quality and security fixes, the security and performance of your store will decay over time. Your store will become vulnerable to potential threats that could wipe out or steal your whole Magento data. Hackers and spammers can get access and steal the credit card information of your customers. This will put you as well as your customers at risk of losing money.
So, if you are thinking and waiting for the support to end, let me tell you one thing that things would get worse the longer you are waiting to migrate to Magento 2.
- Developers will Stop Support for Magento 1.X Extensions
If you’ve integrated multiple extension into Magento 1 store, then you should know that the extension developers will not provide support for Magento 1.X after June 30, 2020. There are already the number of developers who have shifted their focus from Magento 1 to Magento 2 Extension Development and support.
This is because, after June 30, the market for Magento 1.X extension will fall drastically. If we talk about the current scenario, then many Magento 1.X developers have already moved on to Magento 2.X. As Magento 2 is on the rise, you would find more and more developers for support needed with Magento 2 Extensions. Therefore, Making a transition from Magento 1.X to Magento 2.X would be a smart move, considering Magento 2.X’s user-friendliness.
- Hiring Magento 1.X Developers will Become More Expensive
If you’ve got skills to handle the technical issues with your Magento 1.X store, then you are good to go, but if you don’t, then you probably need to hire developers that can do the work for you. Currently, there are a number of developers who prefer to work only with Magento 2, so finding the right developers or agencies that still work with Magento 1.X is hard, and it would get worse after Magneto ends support.
Even if you are lucky and find the developers that can do the work for you on your Magento 1.X version, then it’ll be more pricy. The charges for the development work you require will likely rise because of just a few developers/agencies providing support for the deprecated platform, and it would be a great pain in the back.
- The PCI Compliance Might be Lost after Support ends
Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance standards are developed that ensure the security of payment made through the use of credit cards. You should be using third-party payment gateways to maintain the PCI compliance on your eCommerce store. Another job of PCI compliance is that it secures your website and the platform it’s built on. So, using a valid platform like Magento 2, makes your website PCI compliant.
After Magento ends support on June 30, 2020, the Magento 1.X becomes an unsecure platform to use. This is because most of the payment gateways scan the eCommerce websites for PCI compliance regularly on average 90 days. This is to make sure that cardholders’ data are in safe hands. Without security patches, your store may not be able to pass the PCI scans, and you might lose the customer credit card data and might not be able to take payments through the credit card.
There are also chances of credit card data being stolen, and in that case, you may have to pay high fines for that. As per the 2019 data, most of the companies paid more than $240 per stolen record. So, it is better for you and your customers’ when you decide to switch to Magento 2.X.
- The Performance of Your Website will Take a Fall
Once Magento ends support for Magento 1.X, there will no patching for bugs and the performance of your website is likely going to take a fall. With time, things are likely to get worse, and your website will get slower and buggier.
When you decide to migrate from Magento 1.X to Magento 2.X, you will have more functions and features out-of-the-box unlike what Magento 1.X was offering. But if you decide to continue with Magento 1.X, your website will not be able to provide the desired user experience. This implies that the sales of your store are likely to take a hit. So, it would be a smart decision for your online business to migrate to other eCommerce platforms like Magento 2.X.
Your Life as Magento 1 Store owner:
Let’s just assume that you are not convinced yet and still decides to stay on Magento 1.X even after the Magento ends life support, then it would be like falling off the roof without the parachute. Let’s just imaging for a moment that how life would be for your Magento store after days and weeks of Magento end of life.
After a few days, when you are waking up from your bed everything works fine. But the PHP version that Magento 1.X uses is long dead. (Support for PHP 5.6 ended in 2018, and the latest version 7.2 still gets the security updates but also not actively supported)
Let’s go ahead a bit and suddenly your payment gateway stopped working. When you ask they will inform that your store is no longer PCI compliant which means you might have to pay hefty fines for every loss of the customers’ data.
Moving forward, your store might get breached by attacks from hackers and spammers. Because currently, Magento provides support fixes for the bugs and issues but in the future it will not.
Apart from that, when your marketing suggests new ideas to take your website to a new level by attracting new customers and increase your ROI.
But when you call the agency/developer the one that used to work with you they will inform that they have already moved to Magento 2 as it is no longer supported. And it will difficult for you to find the one who works and keeps supporting Magento 1.x.
Also, over time you will realize that your store became unstable and PIM system has crashed and is not able to sync data correctly with your site. The latest update does not work with Magento 1.X.
Ignore it just like a bad nightmare. You may be wishing that someone should invent the time machine, so you can go back in time and upgrade or migrate your Magento 1.X to Magento 2.
What is the future of Magento 2?
Despite being challenged by other eCommerce platforms, Magento still holds steady feet and has a bright future ahead. After the acquisition from Adobe, Magento has seen a significant boost. With regular upgrades and security patches, Magento is one of the highly secure platforms to use. This gives Magento added advantages and edge to regain lost customers and gain new as well.
Do I need to migrate to Magento 2?
The Magento 1.X version becomes so popular after its initial launch that it was able to cement the platform as a global leader. And with the launch of Magento 2, it’s also a big leap forward for Magento in providing flexibility and feature-rich platform to its merchants. With the increasing use of the Magento 2 platform, it will likely lead the eCommerce industry similar to what Magento 1.X was able to achieve in its life. Magento 2, after its launch, has already impressed many industry-leading developers and merchants.
At Mconnect Media, we believe that Magento 2 is going to be one of the leading platforms of the future. As per the norms set by Magento, new features and functions will be added every quarter with a new version upgrade. So, we want you to leverage the benefits like speed and performance for your eCommerce business. Many of the businesses have already made the transition from Magento 1.X to Magento 2 after seeing what it offers. We’ve already discussed the pros and cons of Magento 2 for your business. But since you are here, let’s have a recap of the benefits when you decide to migrate to Magento 2.
- Fast Load Speed
- Enhanced Performance
- Completely New Architecture
- Superior CMS/Catalog Management System
- Attractive UI Designs
- Easy to Use Admin Panel
- Improved Tracking and Visibility of Results
- Enhanced Experience of Omni-channel Commerce
Also read: 16 Reasons to Migrate to Magento 2 from your old Magento 1 Store
Migrating or upgrading from Magento 1.X to Magento 2 is not a simple task of running some script codes or commands. It is a complex process and must be planned in advance to have a smoother transition to avoid the loss of the data at zero downtime.
What does Magento Experts Say?
Making a decision to re-platform or just upgrading to Magento 2 (M2) depends on the timeline you have set to achieve your business goals. However, an immediate decision would be highly suitable as the end of the support for Magento 1 is coming near. At Mconnect Media, we’ve acquired the expertise in Magento Development, and Magento Migration. With a proven track record of safe, speedy and effective process, we are at the forefront of Magento 2 Migration. You can visit our Magento 2 Migration Service page for more details.
Hello, I wanted to say that it’s a great article and very informative. But I have a question that can I continue using Magento 1 without any of those risks? Is there any other way? Because I don’t know how much it costs and may not be able to pay for migration.
Hello, Stephan. First of all, thank you for reading the article. As we have said that you can continue to use your Magento 1 site if you or someone you know have the technical skill of a developer. You have to patch things up manually, otherwise, you have to hire an agency that still works with Magento 1. But the charges you may have to pay will be a little high because most of the developer agency may have moved to Magento 2.
Let’s say that you are not able to patch things up and can’t find reliable solutions for bugs and critical issues. Then your site will be an easy target for hackers to attack and steal customers’ data. If that happens, you may have to pay hefty fines for each record you lost. The money you pay for those fines will be a hundred or a thousand times more than what you will pay for migration. The chances of Magento 2 getting hacked are low because of the regular quarterly upgrades, which makes your Magento 2 site more secure and safe for your customers than Magento 1.
So, looking at the benefits of Magento 2, we want to encourage you to migrate to Magento 2 sooner. Read this article, if you want to know Magento 2 Migration cost and time it will take. We hope this clears your doubt.
Hello, there. I wanted to ask that after Magento 1 EOL in June 2020, will payments extensions or any other extensions continue to work on M1 sites or do I have to purchase them again?
Hello, Conner. First of all, thank you for reading the article. Let me clear one thing here, your extensions would work as fine as they were working before June 2020 and you do not have to purchase them again. But if some problem arises, then the developers may not be able to provide you the support. This is because most of the developers are moving towards developing Magento 2 extensions. Also, due to this, you may not be able to find suitable extensions with added functionality for your M1 site.
The payment extensions service provider may or may not provide support to an outdated platform. If they lose the PCI compliance, then you will not be able to accept credit cards, which affects your sales and conversions directly.
Once, you migrate to Magento 2, you won’t have to face such problems. We hope this clears your doubt. To know the benefits of migrating to Magento 2, read this article on 16 reasons why you should migrate to Magento 2.
I have read the whole article. You have presented the facts very well here. After reading all of this I want to migrate to Magento 2 as soon as possible. But my biggest concern is the cost. So, should I try to migrate it myself or should I hire specialized people?
Hello, Yasmeen. First of all, thank you for reading the article. We are glad that you liked it. It’s great that you have decided to migrate to Magento 2. If you have a specialized team of developers working on your store, then you may not have to partner up with the outside agency. But if you don’t have any developers then you have to partner up with a reliable migration agency. Because migration is a very complicated process and needs the attention of professionals.
The migration cost does not only consist of the company you hire, but there are many things to consider. Read this article for an in-depth analysis of Magento 2 migration cost. And at the end of the article, you will find 10 tips for hiring a reliable Magento 2 migration company. We have migrated over 36+ store to Magento 2. Many of them had concerns about cost of migration. But after migrating, they are now more relieved and have boosted their sales. We hope this clears your doubt.
I have a question that I have been meaning to ask. I want to know that, why the performance of Magento 2 is better than Magneto 1?
Hello, Zane. First of all, thank you for reading the article. Magento 1 was one of the flexible platforms to build eCommerce sites. But it was lacking in many things. For example, the speed of the Magento 1 was slow among other things compared to other CMS platforms. Many Magento 1 community members asked Magento to solve this issue.
Then Magento released Magento 2, which had been optimized for speed. As per one study, the speed of Magento 2 is 20 to 50% fast than Magento 1. This is due to Magento 2 has support for latest PHP version. Also, Magento 2 is written on a new codebase with HTML5, CSS3, and MySQL. Therefore, the overall performance of Magento 2 is better than Magento 1.
If you are still confused, then read this article on 16 reasons why you should migrate to Magento 2. We hope this clears your doubt.