Everything You Need to Know About the Latest Magento 2.4.4 Update

In April 2022, Adobe released the latest version of Magento, the open-source ecommerce platform that is designed for online retailers. The Magento 2.4.4 release delivers a host of new features, improved functionality, enhanced performance, and critical bug fixes, making it the most competitive and versatile solution for ecommerce retailers.

If you are interested in Magento hosting and would like to find out how it could benefit your business, or you are an existing customer who hasn’t yet taken advantage of Magento 2.4.4, what are the key improvements to the platform?

Major enhancements have been added to Magento 2.4.4 to improve the performance and functionality of the platform. Full details are available in the Magento 2.4.4 release notes, but the most significant improvements relate to platform security and scalability, accessibility, GraphQL, and PayPal.

The major enhancements include:

• HTTPS enabled for more robust security.
• Support for OpenSearch 1.2 and Elasticsearch 7.16.
• PWA Studio 12.3.0 supported.
• Page Builder supports the adding of alt texts for images.
• GraphQL performance enhancements and improvements.
• Hundreds of fixes to solve known performance issues.

The new version of Magento now offers full functional support for PHP 8.1, with the release cycle aligned with PHP end of life. Therefore, Magento 2.4.4 will transition from PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.1, introducing a wealth of new features, and allowing for cleaner code when developing modules for Magento, which leads to higher reliability, security and performance for your Magento site.

With OpenSearch support added, Magento 2.4.4 users can now use OpenSearch alongside Elasticsearch, giving more flexibility and potential than before. If eCommerce stores continue to use Elasticsearch, they should use version 7.16.x. Cloud users should transition to OpenSearch.

Adobe has removed most third-party Vendor Bundled Extensions, except for Braintree which delivers a customisable checkout experience for customers with full PayPal integration. However, extensions that have been removed from the Magento core set of third-party modules will be available for users to download, if they wish, from Magento Marketplace.

MDOQ provides managed hosting and deployment pipeline for ecommerce businesses seeking to improve their sales process with Magento 2 and can ensure all updates to the platform are executed on time and smoothly to optimise the user experience.

To find out more about the benefits of Magento 2.4.4 and how it could support your ecommerce business, please get in touch.

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