Magento 2.4 Release Date: Everything You Should Know?

Magento 2 Release Date & Downloads 

If there’s one positive that can be taken from the current Covid-19 pandemic, it’s establishing the importance of tech and digital footprint for traditional brick and mortar stores.

And now that the world is rushing towards getting them a robust online, Magento has just released its latest 2.4 version, which is specifically focused to enable traditional stores to get a valuable digital footprint and capture more opportunities in the eCommerce marketplace.

For the past month, the market has been abuzz with all the updates and features offered by Magento 2.4, as developers rush to know more about the functionalities and features offered by the latest version. Well, in this blog, we have come up with everything you would like to know about the Magento 2.4 version and why you should start thinking to switch to it in near future.

Platform Changes

• PHP 7.4
• PHPUnit 9.x
• Elasticsearch 7.6.x
• MySQL 8.0
• Removal of the MySQL catalog search engine.
• MariaDB 10.4.
• Removal of the core Magento integration of the Signified fraud protection code.
• Braintree module has been removed from the code base.

Deprecated

• PHP 7.1 and 7.2 deprecated.
• PHPUnit 6.5.
• Elasticsearch versions 5.x and 6.x have been deprecated.
• MySQL 5.6 is no longer supported.
• MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 are no longer supported.6+

Technical Improvements

• Exclusion of third-party payment methods.

In Magento’s previous version, the third-party payment methods including Wordplay, Authorize.Net, eWay, and Cybersource came as part of core code. They can be install from Magento Marketplace. However, Paypal core payment method integration will not be deprecated or removed.

Partial-word search introduced by Elasticsearch.

Elasticsearch 7.6.x is now the default catalog search engine. Previously MySQL search engine was used which has been deprecated and replaced by Elasticsearch in this release. Some of the benefits of Elasticsearch are defined below.

• Instant catalog searches with advanced filters
• Shoppers aren’t disrupted with Elasticsearch reindexes
• Support for stop words and synonyms
• Simple for horizontal scaling
• Multiple language Magento support
• Real-time data analysis
• High preciseness and scalability
• Out of the box working
• Ability to perform as document-oriented data store

PayPal JavaScript SDK upgrade

PayPal Express Checkout integration is updated to latest PayPal JavaScript SDK.

• No more Web Set Up Wizard

Web Set Up Wizard is no longer available in Magento 2.4.0 you have to install or upgrade Magento 2.4.0 by command line.

• Improved Composer plugin.

This plugin helps you protect your customizations before overwriting it by identifying and helping you resolve dependency conflicts instead of you identifying and fixing them manually before upgrading.

• GraphQL

GraphQL is one of the most modern ways of building and querying APIs. In order to offer an alternative to frontend development through REST and SOAP APIs, Magento development implements GraphQL, which enables developers to create customized front-ends, including headless storefronts, mobile apps, and Progressive Web Apps (PWA).

• Fix Reported issues

More than 100+ bugs reported by Magento community has been fixed in Magento 2.4.0 which includes many crucial bugs.

2. What’s in it for a non-technical site owner to get this upgrade?

In order to upgrade your site to Magento 2.4.0 you have to upgrade both server and code base as there are lots of platform and technical changes required as we already discuss this above.

Before you start upgrading your site to Magento 2.4.0 you should follow prerequisites.

• Support of Catalog Search Engine

As Magento 2.4.0 does not support MySQL as a catalog search engine. You have to install and configure Elastic Search 7.6.x

• Install Java Software Development Kit (JDK)

Elasticsearch requires JDK 1.8 or higher. Be sure to install the JDK and not the JRE.

For more details how install JDK follow the link below https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.4/install-gde/prereq/elasticsearch.html

• PHP and server requirements

Following are some of the PHP and server requirements

• Operating systems (Linux x86-64)
• Composer latest version
• Web server Apache 2.4, nginx 1.x (you must enable the Apache mod_rewrite and mod_version modules)
• MySQL 8.0
• MariaDB 10.4 for Magento Commerce Cloud projects
• PHP 7.4.0
• PHP Extension
  • ext-bcmath
  • ext-ctype
  • ext-curl
  • ext-dom
  • ext-gd
  • ext-hash
  • ext-iconv
  • ext-intl
  • ext-mbstring
  • ext-openssl
  • ext-pdo_mysql
  • ext-simplexml
  • ext-soap
  • ext-xsl
  • ext-zip
  • lib-libxml
• PHP OPcache

It is strongly recommended to enable OPcache for performance reasons. To check weather it is installed follow below link.

https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.4/install-gde/prereq/php-settings.html

• PHP Settings

Check PHP recommended settings in order to avoid complications in project. For further details follow this link https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.4/install-gde/prereq/php-settings.html

• Server dependencies
  • bash
  • gzip
  • lsof
  • mysql
  • mysqldump
  • nice
  • php
  • sed
  • tar
• Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) or an SMTP server
• Elastic search 7.6.x.

3. A vague estimate on effort required to upgrade a default (non-customized store from M2.x to M2.4)

Well that’s always hard to answer but what if we take example of non-customized Magento 2.x version. It will take more time in updating server requirements rather than code because there are lots of changes needs to be done for environment setup as we discussed it above. In case everything goes well it may take 8 to 10 hours to updated non customized Magento 2.x to Magento 2.4

4. Any chance the extensions for 2.3.x might continue to work on 2.4?

It depends on what areas of Magento extension does your cover. It may cause issues with some of PHP functions as Magento 2.4 does not support PHP 7.1 and 7.2.

FAQs:

Is it easy to hire Magento 2 development company and Top Shopify app development agency in the US?

The massive competition in the online industry means that you can’t just rely on average stores to attract customers. You need a fully functional and professionally designed Shopify store to standout amongst the competition. If you are looking to hire a top Shopify app development agency in the USA, make sure to keep in view the below-mentioned considerations;

– The agency should have in-depth knowledge and understanding of Shopify app development

– Should have a diverse and wide-ranging portfolio

– Should have positive customer ratings and reviews

– Should be responsive with great communication skills