Updated March 18, 2023
Difference Between Magento 1 and Magento 2
Magento is a leading as well a highly popular e-commerce platform. Magento 1 was the first version of the platform, while Magento 2 is the second as well as the latest version of the platform. Magento 2 was released a decade after the launch of Magento 1. Note that Magento will cease offering support for Magento 1 from June 2020 onwards. There is a large community of Magento developers who offer solutions to Magento issues and continuously develop various functionalities and features for the platform. Magento 1 vs Magento 2 is user-friendly, powerful, highly customizable, flexible, offers a host of useful features and functionalities and much more. It is a highly secure platform that even works on mobile devices. Magento 1 vs Magento 2 powered sites makes the shopping experience fast, simple and pleasant. Many organizations have used and benefited from this robust and powerful e-commerce platform. The current trend is the migration of websites from Magento 1 to Magento 2.
We compare the 2 Magento platforms on various parameters.
Head to Head Comparison Between Magento 1 and Magento 2 (Infographics)
Below are the top 13 differences between Magento 1 vs Magento 2:
Key Differences Between Magento 1 and Magento 2
Some of the major key differences are mentioned below:
- Pricing- The community editions of both Magento 1 vs Magento 2 are free. The cost of Magento1 Enterprise Edition begins from $18,000 annually, while Magento 2 Enterprise Edition’s cost begins from $22,000 yearly.
- Security –As Magento 2 is ceasing support for Magento 1 after June 2020, Magento1 powered websites may become vulnerable to cyberattacks and miscellaneous security threats.
- SEO Features and Functionality-Magento 2 has better SEO as compared to Magento 1. The former is better optimized for mobiles, a major ranking factor for search engines such as Google and others. Magento 2 does away with duplicate content problems. The individual page’s meta tags are enabled with Magento 2.
- Dashboard Design –Magento 2’s admin well is convenient to use as well as highly interactive. Data can be fast, and there is ease of navigation to all the admin panel’s parts. The panel offers superior management of the store. The platform has a well-designed dashboard that offers a comprehensive view of all shopping information. Magento 1’s admin panel has limited features and lacks ease of use.
- Extensions –The exists a very large number of extensions for Magento 1. With the latter, there was the issue of conflicts between extensions. Multiple extensions attempt to rewrite identical functionality. To fix the problem, manual work is needed, which is time as well as money consuming. In Magento 2, plugins permit code blocks to overlap with the code instead of overriding it. The latest technology, such as Require.js, CSS3, and HTML5, are present in Magento 2. This updation, as well as the installation of fresh extensions, is inexpensive and easy to do.
- Performance and speed-Magento 2 has full-page caching, which lets it load pages faster when benchmarked against Magento 1. This includes processing more orders per hour, quicker end-to-end checkout times and others.
- Different Architectures –Magento 1 had poor store performance. This issue has been corrected in Magento 2. Some new technologies have been introduced in Magento 2.
A few of them are:
- Nginx
- Symfony
- Composer
- Apache.
Magento 1 vs Magento 2 Comparison Table
Let’s discuss the top comparison between Magento 1 vs Magento 2:
| Magento 1 | Magento 2 |
| Loading speed is less compared to Magento 2 | Faster loading speed compared to Magento 1 |
| Imported JQuery & Prototype, which slowed the platform. | Removed Prototype as the core JavaScript library and substituted it with the RequireJS library. This boosted the performance as a lesser number of JavaScript files were required to be called. |
| Supported the older versions of PHP | Offer support for the latest versions of PHP, which are far more advanced than the older versions. |
| Unfriendly admin interface | User-friendly admin interface |
| Not so mobile friendly and responsive. The platform had to be modified as well as enhanced to be made responsive. | Highly mobile friendly and responsive |
| Comparatively less native features and functionality | Comparatively, more native features and functionality. |
| Build using old technology. Performance and speed is slower compared to Magento 2 | PHP 5.5 and 5.6 has been employed to create Magento 2. Due to this, Magento 2 is significantly faster when benchmarked against Magento 1. |
| The platform does not have HTML5. | HTML5 simplifies development. It gives Magento 2 platforms a significant edge over Magento 1 powered platforms. |
| Since the platform has been around for a long time, there are more developers familiar with this platform. The number of themes and extensions is also vast. | This platform has existed for a lesser time than Magento 1. Hence the number of developers with knowledge and experience with the platform is comparatively fewer. However, this situation is likely to change in the future. There are also lesser Magento 2 compatible themes and extensions available in the market today. |
| The cost of developing Magento 1 powered websites is lesser as the developers are relatively cheaper, and so are the necessary themes and extensions. | Magento 2 developers charge higher, and there is more cost incurred in building a Magento 1 powered site. |
| The checkout process is based on old technology and is slow as well as cumbersome. | It offers a fresh and streamlined checkout. For customers, the checkout experience is easier as well as faster. You don’t always require registration for checkout. |
| In Magento 1, whenever a new item is put in the cart, the entire page is reloaded, resulting in slower performance. As a result, many customers abandoned their carts because they were impatient and frustrated with speed. | Magento 2 has a new feature, namely Ajax add-to-cart. As a result, whenever an item is put in the cart, the entire page is not reloaded. This translates to happier and loyal customers who don’t abandon their carts. |
| Here coders, admins as well as customers operate the same database. | Magento 2 Enterprise edition offers 3 master databases for Ø orders Ø checkout Ø product information This does away with the issue of database overload. |
Conclusion
So now you have an idea of both Magento 1 and Magento 2. If you are already using Magento 1, it is recommended you migrate your website to Magento 2. The reason is that Magento 2 offers better performance than Magento 1. Also, support for Magento 1 is ending soon. The migration may involve more work and costs but is definitely worth it.
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