A solid open source eCommerce software, created by Varien Inc, first surfaced on the internet on March 31, 2008. Though it took a little while for this infant software to gain popularity, it did not budge from its ultimate goal: providing eCommerce retailers with a platform which is highly scalable and offers businesses with create an entirely new online store.
The platform came with a flexible modular architecture, containing a myriad of control
options helping the users to build both user-friendly and search engine friendly websites. The only problem was that it took longer to build core functionalities on this eCommerce platform. But once done, your website would run immensely smooth.
As we know, every technological innovation that sets it foot in the market, has to expand or upgrade in order to stay relevant and successful. It is time for this platform to rise to the next level, bidding farewell to the very first version that had hit the market.
Magento 1 End of Life
At one point in time, Magento shot to fame and within no time there was an avalanche of demand for Magento development services. According to data and statistics from Builtwith, more than 771,365 websites currently use Magento as their base platform.
According to w3techs, ‘Magento is used by 1.5% of all the websites whose content management system we know.’ Considering the total number of websites live on the internet, this figure is nothing to sneeze at. And the popularity of Magento is growing exponentially as of writing this article.
The End of Support for Magento 1
According to the official announcement from Magento, by June 2020, Magento will stop providing support like software updates and security patches for its popular Commerce 1 and Open Source CMS platforms (formerly Enterprise and Community Editions).
This announcement left eCommerce retailers in a frenzy, looking for obvious solutions, although some might find them costly or disruptive.
The EoL date of Magento is not the only thing you should consider. On December 31st, 2018, PHP 5.6 was deprecated.
Now, PHP is a server-side scripting language on which Magento platform was written. Considering Magento 1 previously only supported up to PHP 5.6, this would have meant a huge blow to the Magento community.
Rest assured though.Since Magento 1 would be deprecated after the 5.6 EoL, Magento released a patch in September 2018 which enables Magento 1 sites to support up to PHP 7.2. The support for PHP 7.2 is expected to go EoL in November 2020 which will provide an additional two years of security support compared to 5.6.
Additionally, in November 2020 the creators will also deprecate CentOS 6.x. This OS is used by many Magento 1 sites as the linux component of their LAMP stack. This deprecation will signal a further lack of industry-wide support for the Magento 1 platform.
Magento Commerce 1 Formerly known as Enterprise Edition
According to the official announcement, for Magento Commerce 1, they will provide software support through June 2020. Depending on the version that your website is running on, software support may include both quality fixes and security patches.
Magento Open Source Formerly Known as Community Edition
For those who are using Magento Open Source 1, Magento will provide software security patches through June 2020 to ensure those sites remain secure and compliant. You can visit the Legal Terms page and review the Magento Open Source Software Maintenance Policy to see which versions of Magento Open Source 1 continue to receive software security maintenance.
Why Update or Migrate?
Considering the background of the Magento 1 end of life, one of the most strong and evident reasons to move ahead is the security risk. However, the ones uninitiated with the technicalities of a CMS but are using it currently, should understand there are a number of equally important reasons:
- Better features — With the update, all CMS get new and modern features. One may not find an a la carte way to get hold of them. These features are a part of the updaten and not available anywhere else.
- Bug fixes — Another common feature that is often rolled out with an update. Understand that a website does not need to be broken or hacked in order to create a poor user experience. Regular CMS updates ensure that the pesky bugs— be it visible or not, keep on getting bashed with consistent bug fixes.
- Cost savings — Most of these updates that are rolled out are free. And it is inexpensive to run updates as they become available, when compared to paying for a fix which address exploits after the fact. On top of that, an out-of-date site will not provide the best user experience and will not generate all the revenue it potentially could.
- Time savings — Cleaning an outdated CMS isn’t a quick fix at all. And eCommerce retailers could spend and invest the same time in what they do best: providing shopping experiences that convert more visitors, instead of cleaning up and outdated CMS.
Magecart Attacks
One of the biggest dangers to sites running on outdated CMS comes from Magecart gangs. They are a group of online hackers who use vulnerabilities in online stores in order to take over shops and plant code that records payment card details. This is also called supply chain attack. They later sell this data to other cybercrime groups.
Right from the time they started back in 2015, Magecart (web skimming, or e-skimming) attacks have primarily targeted on Magento stores, pertaining to the software’s popularity.
The Magento-hosting platform is definitely kept up to date with the latest patches, but the self-hosted Magento installs are not, and that’s were the bulk of the 1.x versions are currently installed.
All of these sites pose an attractive attack surface. And once Magento 1 goes EOL, it will be a goldmine for these hackers if the CMS is not updated. They will be more keen finding the bugs and vulnerabilities knowing the Magento team won’t be around to fix them.
End note
After magento 1 end of life, Now it is the time for upgrade to Magento Commerce 2. Magento Commerce 2 delivers superior cloud-hosted performance at scale, freedom from IT bottlenecks with creating, scheduling, and launching compelling content, and true business intelligence capabilities. Get in touch with a Magento eCommerce development company and update your current website to the latest version.
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