Magento 2.4.4: how the release impacts your eCommerce business - Zitec

As an Adobe Solution Bronze Partner with over 19 years of experience in developing a wide range of eCommerce stores for worldwide clients, we make a priority to keep our eCommerce partners in the loop with the latest Magento announcements so they can keep their competitive edge and meet customers’ needs. 

Magento 2.4.4

Magento (now Adobe Commerce) is one of the leading commerce solutions for businesses across B2C, B2B, and hybrid commerce. It incorporates a variety of cloud-based multichannel solutions that allow eCommerce businesses to integrate personalized shopping experiences, easily manage inventory, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), improve uptime, and lower development costs. 

A new version of Magento, Magento 2.4.4, was launched on April 12, coming with major improvements and security and quality fixes. In this article, we’ll take a look at what these updates bring new, the benefits for your development process and business, and what actions they require of you.  

Major highlights

• HTTPS is enabled by default for the Magento 2 storefront and admin;
• there is support for Elasticsearch 7.16, OpenSearch 1.2, PHP 8.1, and PWA Studio v.12.3.0;
• vendor-bundled extensions from the latest release are removed, except Braintree;
• page builder supports adding alt texts for images;
• GraphQL enhancements and performance improvements;
• around 250 bugs and quality fixes.

Let’s deep dive into the main areas of enhancement for a clearer view of each important Magento update:

Security enhancements

Magento 2.4.4. has been released with major security improvements that will benefit businesses and consumers alike – allowing for more secure online shopping – such as:

• improved token-based access (password reset tokens and OAuth access tokens are now encrypted when stored in the database);
• session IDs no longer stored in the Magento database;
• increased API security;
• secure URLs (HTTPS) for storefront and admin;
• Swagger disabled in production mode;
• disabled upload of non-alpha-numeric file extensions to strengthen validation;
• reCAPTCHA was added to coupon codes.

Performance and scalability improvements 

Magento 2.4.4 release notes state that order processing efficiency is now increased by 6 times due to enhanced processing order throughput and message queues. This version’s performance and scalability enhancements include:

• “Enable Inventory Check On Cart Load” configuration option for faster checkout;
• AsyncOrder feature for better performance;
• deferred total calculation during checkout for improved sales rules processing;
• memory limit for the cart operations that supports input variables volume;
• fully compatible PWA Studio v.12.3.0.

One of these major updates, AsyncOrder, speeds up order processing in the background while customers proceed with their checkout. This means an improved overall user experience for both store owners and customers. 

Platform optimizations  

The latest Magento version is upgraded with compelling improvements for Magento developers, such as:

• project dependencies and libraries compatible with PHP 8.1;
• Elasticsearch 7.16 and OpenSearch 1.2 support;
• JQuery library updated to version (3.6);
• TinyMCE 5.8.1 support;
• PHPUnit upgraded to the latest version (9.5.x).

Elasticsearch 7.16 configuration allows for optimized product search based on a wide range of criteria. It’s simple to use and can be set up with a variety of options. For businesses, this configuration offers many benefits that can lead to increased conversions and improved customer retention when used properly. The switch to OpenSource was made in this version due to changes in license management for ElasticSearch. Another major update, OpenSearch, is an on-site search supported by AWS function that comes with more dashboards for analyses and planning for eCommerce businesses. 

Vendor-bundled extensions

In the latest Magento version, third-party bundled modules are decoupled, except for Braintree. Merchants can migrate to the following official extensions, available on Commerce Marketplace: Amazon Pay, dotdigital, Klarna, Vertex, and YotPo. Moreover, Magento 2.4.4. comes with PayPal Venmo payments and a checkout page that accurately displays information about the number and amount of installments when using Pay Later payment options.

Fixed issues 

There are approximately 250 issues and quality fixes in the latest Magento version, such as:

• navigation accessibility on the cart and checkout pages;
• fixed “Please refresh the page” in the backend;
• restored cart product quantity to the previous value if the updated quantity is invalid;
• no white background for watermark images with transparent backgrounds on the transparent product image that it overlays;
• fixed errors for payment completion with the Express payment method (a Visa or Mastercard transaction that is under USD 35);
• no performance degradation on the checkout page when assigning a high sort value to a customer address attribute;
• no issues with product ratings in the catalog list view.

GraphQL upgrades 

On the GraphQL side, Magento 2.4.4 comes with the following enhancement:

• increased storefront performance based on new GraphQL request caching that involves Fastly and Varnish that cache GraphQL requests sent with auth tokens;
• optimized GraphQL cart operations with the collectQuoteTotals() method;
• configuration settings are returned for storeConfig query for the Zero Subtotal Checkout and Check/Money Order payment methods;
• webonyx library updated to 14.9;
• translated strings returned by GraphQL resolver following the store scope parameter;
• descriptive transaction names for New Relic to simplify debugging.

Magento uses GraphQL for queries to APIs, making them faster, more flexible, and developer-friendly. These queries allow users to pull the exact data they request from the server. In this Magento update, bugs have been fixed, such as configurable products, hiding categories that weren’t previously working, and errors caused by missing phone numbers on shipping addresses. 

Choose Zitec for Magento 2 transition 

Our team recommends this upgrade so that you can benefit from the new extensions, an on-site search function supported by AWS and a more secure eCommerce platform.

With a diverse range of Magento/Adobe Commerce projects, such as Brico Depôt România, Flanco, iELM, or Innoship, we’re ready to take on every eCommerce project, no matter how ambitious it is. As an Adobe Solution Bronze Partner for Magento, Zitec can help you create exciting shopping experiences and drive ROI. Adobe Commerce’s scalability and opportunities for customization and integrations will allow you to quickly incorporate new technologies and reach customers across various touchpoints. Ready to take advantage of all the benefits of the Adobe Commerce (Magento) platform for your online business? Contact us!