As you might know, from June 2020, Magento has dropped the Magento 1 support.
This means both the version of Magento 1, community and enterprise, will no longer be supported by Magento from June 2020. Magento has officially announced the End of Life.
Without any authoritative central body to release updates, thousands of merchants on Magento 1 will not be able to access the new features, upgrades, bug fixes, and support.
Future vulnerabilities without patches will make the platform prone to multiple web threats.
Magento is pushing the merchants to migrate to Magento 2. But this is not the End of Magento 1.
Your store is not going to disappear suddenly on the 1st of July. It will remain active with all its functionalities.
So, how will this Magento 1 End of Life support affect your Magento 1 store?
What Does Magento 1 End Of Life Mean?
Security Issues
Right now, the Magento team is always looking for vulnerabilities and security errors and patches them. It means your store and data are protected due to the regular updates released by Magento.
After June 2020, this will stop.
Magento has the largest market share in the eCommerce market, and Magento 1 is leading in Top 10K Sites, Top 100K Sites, Top 1M Sites, and The Entire Web.
Once the Magento 1 support drops, the hackers would actively try to find the loopholes to steal the data of the customers from unsupported M1 stores.
DDoS attacks, Brute Force, spam registrations, SQL injection — there are many ways hackers use to get the information out from the store database. And unsupported sites are easy targets.
As a business owner, it is your responsibility to protect the data of your customers and their payment details.
PCI Compliance
eCommerce stores have to follow strict data security policies imposed by various government bodies. Credit Card companies and multiple payment gateways also have policies to protect the consumer from fraud.
Not having a secure platform means directly going against PCI compliance. It means risking paying huge fines and penalties, that can go over the $50k per month, to the 5% of yearly turnover.
It will also hurt the reputation of the store.
No Technical Support
Other than the security, you are losing the technical support from the magento team.
If you find any glitch or issue on the platform, there will be no concrete party to turn to for solutions, except the open-source community and forums.
Though the open-source community is helpful, relying on them for technical advisory, when you are running an eCommerce business, is not a wise decision.
You need a technical service consultant that is available 24/7/365 and resolves the issue quickly. If there is an issue with the check-out for a few hours, you may lose a lot in sales.
Your in-house magento developer could do the job, but it will never be as efficient.
You will need a security consultant, with the sole purpose of monitoring your site for issues and patching them up. Still, it is not the job of one person.
So what are the best alternatives?
- Migrate to Magento 2
- Move over to different eCommerce platforms
- Get End of life Support from ServerGuy
Migrating to Magento 2
Between magento 1 and Magento 2, Magento 2 is undoubtedly a better eCommerce platform.
After the migration, the merchants will find an easy-to-use admin interface and improved site performance—best of all, the support of the Magento and peace to your mind.
However, you must know that migrating to Magento 2 is not only an upgrade. Magento 2 is an entirely new platform with a different framework and structure.
This is not some one-click upgrade to the next version, but a complete transition to a new platform, that requires a plan, lots of time, and resources.
All customized extensions, custom codes, theme modifications, have to be redone and rewritten, to make them compatible with magento 2 and the latest PHP.
The migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is an expensive and time-consuming process. It can take a month for a smaller store, while 3-4 months for a large one.
The rate of migration may vary, but the range is $10,000 to $150,000.
What has to be done during migration:
Theme Customisation: You would like to keep the design of the site the same, as the customers are familiar with it. If the theme supports the M2, then fine; if not, then you may have to build one from scratch.
Extensions: Most of the extensions have created a version that supports Magento 2, but if you are using a customized extension, then you have to build it for Magento 2.
Data Migration: It is not about importing and exporting the data, but the configuration of the database in the right tables, so the data remains useful. Data Migration is a long process, and if you do it in a hurry, you may lose the essential files.
Testing: Finally, there will be lots of testing. You cannot do it yourself, nor your in-house team can do it. Rigorous testing is important before going live.
Migrating Magento 1 to Magento 2 is a wise decision, but you must not take it in a rush, and take your time to analyze your next move.
This takes us to your second alternative.
Moving over to different eCommerce Platform
It is best practice to re-evaluate your eCommerce stack every 3-5 years. The market is ever-evolving, and so are the eCommerce technologies.
You have to look for if your store is ready to adapt to the new-found technologies to gain a competitive advantage. It depends on the software stack, structure, and architecture of your platform.
Though the migration process would still be complicated as you are moving to an entirely different atmosphere, the migration would be much less expensive than the Magento 2 migration.
There are two ways to this:
# Using a Platform:
Replacing an open-source eCommerce platform with another open-source platform could help you as it gives you more flexibility. The changes you made in Magento could be replicated easily into another open-source environment.
Like Magento, there are many eCommerce platforms, like WooCommerce, Prestashop, Opencart, Drupal. All of them have their pros and cons. You can read about them in detail in this post.
# Using a Software:
Moving on to the software would reduce the costs of developer, and maintenance, but it also takes away the flexibility.
Moreover, all the software asks for an extra fee for the added functionalities.
You may have heard of Shopify. There are many eCommerce software like that in the market, all catering to small business owners with low sales. You can also take the help of b2b eCommerce solution companies to show you the right direction.
Also Read: Shopify vs Magento 2
After using Magento and setting up the store on the platform, it is not satisfactory to leave such a robust and scalable platform.
That takes us to your final alternative.
Get Magento 1 End of life Support from ServerGuy
The biggest concern about staying on Magento 1, for now, is security.
What if you don’t have to worry about it at all?
That’s what the Magento 1 End of Life support by ServerGuy is.
ServerGuy Magento 1 end of life Support protects your store by securing the platform by handling all the security and technical issues.
What you get with ServerGuy EOL Support:
Security Patches:
We will patch the bugs and test the community-made patches before releasing them to the store.
Proactive Monitoring:
We will patch the bugs and test the community-made patches before releasing them to the store.
Blacklisting:
Merchants get the option to stop serving the pages in the regions and countries and securing the admin dashboard with whitelisting.
Malware Scan:
Daily malware scan of your site at a regular time, and an automated report sent to your mail.
Bug Searching:
Actively searching for the bugs and patching them before anyone can exploit the errors.
Technical Consultant:
If you ever find any glitch or issue, our team will always be in contact and issue the fix.
How it helps you:
Flexibility: You get the time to decide whether you want to migrate or not.
There is no rush to make a decision, migrate when it is suitable for you. Until then, ServerGuy is securing your store.
Save Money: Right now, Magento 2 platform is new, and the developer’s fees are high.
With time, more and more developers will learn the M2, and the competition will reduce their prices. Wait and save time.
Test Magento 2: There are more than a thousand issues of Magento 2 on Github and increasing every day.
Let the early adopters test the Magento 2, and watch how it is going, and then decide after the complete evaluation.
Frequently Asked Question
What is the benefit of ServerGuy Magento 1 End of Life Support?
The benefit of ServerGuy Magento 1 End of Life Support is that you don’t have to migrate to Magento 2 now. You can take your time and make a decision when you are ready.
With our EOL support, you get the fixes and security patches for the Magento 1 platform. That gives you breathing space to decide how you want to proceed with your store.
What other options do I have?
You can migrate to Magento 2, or you can change your eCommerce platform. Both options require a lot of time and resources. We can help you in both cases.
What is the pricing for EOL Support?
The pricing of the Magento 1 End of Life support depends on the size of your store and your requirement. But it will undoubtedly be much lesser than the migration cost.
You can contact us for the quote.
