Magento Open Source & Adobe Commerce Upgrades and Migration

Determining whether to upgrade from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce depends on various factors unique to each store. Here are some scenarios where upgrading might be beneficial:

• Stores handling 1-100 orders per week typically perform well with Magento Open Source. However, certain stores in this range might gain advantages from Adobe Commerce.
• Stores with an annual online revenue under $2M usually find Magento Open Source sufficient, but some could see improvements with Adobe Commerce.
• Consider Adobe Commerce if you plan to use a significant portion of its exclusive features.
• Adobe Commerce is a suitable choice for sites that experience high order volumes in short periods, such as during major sales or promotions.
• If your store requires integration with technology exclusive to Adobe Commerce, upgrading may be necessary.
• If your business anticipates rapid growth or has specific requirements for a new site, starting with Adobe Commerce might be essential. Transitioning from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce later can lead to increased costs and schedule disruptions.

The answer is: it depends on your business goals, growth plans, and current challenges, but for many medium to large-sized businesses, the move to Adobe Commerce Cloud can definitely be worth it.

When it is worth it:

• If you're spending too much time or money managing infrastructure, hosting, or troubleshooting performance issues, the cloud offloads all of that to Adobe. That’s time and resources back in your pocket.

• Adobe Commerce Cloud is built to scale. If your store is growing, or you expect major traffic fluctuations (holiday sales, product launches), the cloud can handle it without the growing pains of on-premise hosting.

• Adobe prioritizes updates and new capabilities on the cloud version first. That includes performance enhancements, AI tools like Adobe Sensei, and integrations with other Adobe products.

• Adobe handles security updates, patches, and compliance standards like PCI. For stores without a big IT/security team, this is a huge win.

When it might not be the right time:

• If your store is stable and not growing rapidly, and your current on-prem setup is cost-effective and easy to manage, you might not see immediate ROI from the move.

• If you have highly custom infrastructure needs or integrations that might be harder to port over to the cloud, there may be short-term complexity or cost in migrating.

If you’re aiming to grow, streamline operations, and want to tap into Adobe’s wider ecosystem, moving to Adobe Commerce Cloud is usually a smart investment. But if your current setup is running smoothly, and you're not planning to scale quickly, you might be fine holding off a bit longer.

If you're interested in Moving to Adobe Commerce Cloud you've come to the right place as we're one of Adobe's strategic partners in their 'Move to Cloud' program. You can read more about what the migration looks like in our blog post. Drop us a line if you're interested in more information.

There a many reasons to upgrade to Magento 2.X. The new platform, which is focused on the future offers offers a powerful combination of enhanced performance, improved security, and advanced features designed to drive growth and efficiency.

Thanks to enhanced performance customers will experience quicker browsing and faster checkout. Improved security will protect your store from ever evelving cyber threats. The improved UI of the admin interface will streamline operations and reduce time spent on administrative tasks while the redesigned storefront with mobile-optimized interface will ehnahce the shopping experience for both mobile and desktop users leading to higher conversion rates.

The new platform also offers advanced SEO capabilities which contributes to better search engine rankings while its improved architecture will be able to handle larger product catalogs and scale as your business grows. The full list of benefits of upgrading to Magento 2 as well as the risks of staying on the old platform can be found in our blog post.

We have listed several types of upgrades that are available and have included the reasoning behind each upgrade.

Magento 1.X to Magento 2.X

The motivation to upgrade from Magento 1.X to Magento 2.X may be to get on the latest version of Magento and take advantage of the newer technology. The cost tends to be equal to building a new Magento site. The reason for this is that the 1.X theme, extensions and customizations cannot be just "migrated" over to 2.X. It's technically a new build which includes a new 2.X Magento theme. The cost savings over building a new site is that the database can be migrated over with Magento's migration tool to 2.X and, if the requirements all remain the same, saving time without having to do another deep discovery of requirements. At this stage of an upgrade it's worth considering what extensions you really need to move to 2.X. Doing a refresh on the frontend store design including adding responsive design if it was not on the 1.X site.

Magento 1.X to Adobe Commerce

In this upgrade path the reason may be that your Magento 1.X store is maxed out with some capabilities. By upgrading to Adobe Commerce, you take advantage of not only the new 2.X platform but also the benefits of Adobe Commerce. This cost tends to be almost equal or slightly higher as building a new Magento site. The reason for this is the same as with upgrade to Magento 2.X.

Magento Enterprise 1.X to Adobe Commerce

In this upgrade path the reason may be that your store is ready for a major improvement or you simply want to take advantage of the new Adobe Commerce platform. The cost tends to be equal to building a new Magento site for the same reasons as above.