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_ _ Márk Bíró

How can Magento 2.4.4 increase your profit?

After a long period of beta-testing, Adobe publicly released Magento 2.4.4 on March 8, 2022. Although it seems to be a “minor” version update, 2.4.4 absolutely improves performance and security by offering merchants increased traffic and sales while decreasing support costs.

How can a minor update do that? The 2.4.4 updates include many changes that may appear to be interesting for technical professionals alone, but that could not be further from the truth. Changes like the updated versions of PHP, ElasticSearch, jQuery and MySQL will have a positive impact on the business side as well. Let’s investigate how.

Faster UX & Increased sales

The new Magento version supports the latest PHP version (8.1) which brings many new features and better performance for everyone. The new features like Enumerations, Read-only Properties, and Final class constants can make the developing process faster and the better performance can result in higher conversation and sales rates.

To better understand how critical PHP is to the platform, Adobe has decided to change Magento’s release cycle to align with PHP versions end of life. To learn more about this PHP release, feel free to visit the official PHP 8.1 release page.

Reduced Development Costs

Magento 2.4.4 helps developers by updating software components, removing and / or updating libraries and fixing GraphQL errors. Below are the most important updates:

  • RequireJS is updated to 2.3.6
  • Endroid/qr-code updated to the latest version
  • PHP Unit 9.5
  • TinyMCE 5
  • Updated JavaScript libraries:
    • Script.aculo.us
    • Chart.js
    • Moment.js
    • Moment-timezone-with-data.js
    • MatchMedia.js
    • Underscore.js
  • PrototypeJS
    • Removed JavaScript libraries:
    • es6-collections.js
    • MutationObserver.js
    • Modernizr
    • FormData.js

The list is long but all these changes help developers to work more efficiently resulting in reduced development costs.

Enhanced Security

Another innovation was using OpenSearch instead of Elasticsearch and Kibana which are no longer open-source software, to reduce costs and provide enhanced security too. The change is mandatory for Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 Cloud as they will transition from Elasticsearch to OpenSearch.

Earlier Magento versions were packaged with a list of 3rd-party extensions however, in the new version, Adobe has decoupled almost all third-party modules from the Magento core to enhance security. The Braintree extension will be the only 3rd party extension remaining but extensions removed from a Vendor Bundled Extension list will still be available for optional download from the Magento Marketplace.

Summary

As you can see, Magento 2.4.4 offers many improvements in performance and security which are not only good for your developers but for your business too.

If you need help with an upgrade, ITG is the team for you! Let’s have a discussion today.