Magento 2.4.6: Releases, Key Highlights, New Features and System Requirements
Magento recently announced the general availability of Magento 2.4.6 on March 14, 2023. This latest release continues Magento’s tradition of delivering a robust open-source ecommerce platform focused on performance, security, and feature enhancements.
Store owners and developers familiar with Magento 2 will find that the Magento 2.4.6 version – release notes provide necessary upgrades and optimizations to enable a faster, more secure, and easier-to-manage storefront and admin experience. Merchants operating at high volumes or supporting large catalogs can benefit from targeted performance improvements for order processing, product grids, and APIs.
This significant release also maintains compatibility with PHP 8.1 while adding support for PHP 8.2 and upgrading critical framework dependencies like Composer. The Magento 2.4.6 release notes contain over 250 fixes and enhancements developed by the Magento team and community, making it a worthwhile update for existing Magento 2 merchants.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore what’s new in Magento 2.4.6 across areas like performance, security, payments, GraphQL, B2B capabilities, and frontend enhancements. Let’s dive in and learn about the key highlights of Magento 2.4.6!
Key Highlights of Magento 2.4.6
- Performance and Scalability Improvements
- Security Fixes and Enhancements
- Platform Upgrades and Compatibility
- Braintree Payment Method Enhancements
- GraphQL Performance Optimizations
- B2B and Accessibility Updates
Performance and Scalability Improvements
Magento 2.4.6 focused heavily on optimizing performance and reducing friction for high-volume merchants. The release also brings meaningful gains in critical storefront and admin operations and configuration options to streamline large catalogs and complex order processing.
- Support for PHP 8.2 while maintaining PHP 8.1 compatibility: One of the notable changes in Magento 2.4.6 is the added support for running on PHP 8.2 while retaining compatibility with PHP 8.1. This allows merchants to leverage the latest PHP 8 releases and performance gains while ensuring a smooth upgrade path.
- Upgrades to core composer dependencies and third-party libraries: Essential packages, including Composer, redis, php-cs-fixer, and Nginx, have been updated to their latest stable versions. These upgraded dependencies improve performance and allow merchants to benefit from recent optimizations and security fixes.
- Improved order processing performance through load balancing for high-volume merchants: Merchants processing over 5,000 orders per hour can enable background order processing in Admin to distribute load and speed up order management operations.
- New REST API endpoint for faster data import (up to 100,000 records per minute): Bulk data imports through the new async/bulk endpoint for REST APIs can import up to 100,000 records per minute, allowing much faster data ingestion.
- Enhanced product grid performance by limiting the number of displayed products: Admin users can set a configurable limit on products displayed in category and product grids to load and navigate large catalogs with over 100k SKUs quickly.
- Configuration setting to optimize operations involving 100+ customer segments: Merchants using 100 or more customer segments can optimize performance by enabling a new index setting for customer grid indexing.
Security Fixes and Enhancements
Magento 2.4.6 provides multiple security fixes and enhancements to help merchants maintain a secure and compliant storefront. These are some of the new features of Magento 2.4.6 related to security:
- Eight security fixes and platform security improvements: This release includes fixes for eight different security issues, including prevention of RCE via deserialization and protections against possible XSS, SQL Injection, and remote code execution vulnerabilities.
- more specific auditing of admin actions through Admin Action Logs: Granular logging of admin actions allows easier auditing and tracking of changes. Admins can now enable action logging for key areas like products, orders, users, and CRON jobs.
- Resolution of reCAPTCHA validation failure during payment processing: A bug causing reCAPTCHA to fail unpredictably during checkout has been fixed, improving security and compliance.
Platform Upgrades and Compatibility
Magento 2.4.6 ensures compatibility with the latest versions of critical open-source frameworks, databases, and services used in Magento installations.
- Support for Composer 2.2.x, Redis 7.0.x, and OpenSearch 2.x: Updated dependencies allow merchants to upgrade the underlying technology powering Magento without compatibility issues or additional configuration.
- Compatibility with ElasticSearch 8.x and MariaDB 10.6: By supporting the latest Elasticsearch and MariaDB/MySQL releases, merchants get access to performance and security enhancements from these databases.
- Removal of outdated JavaScript libraries and dependencies: Deprecated JS libraries like jQuery Migrate and RequireJS have now been removed, simplifying customizations and JS bundling.
- Compatibility with Page Builder v.1.7.3 and PWA Studio v.13.0.x: Storefront tools like Page Builder and PWA Studio work seamlessly with 2.4.6 without the need for additional compatibility updates.
Braintree Payment Method Enhancements
Merchants using Braintree can enable multiple payment improvements in their Magento 2.4.6 stores.
- Enabled Braintree Pay Later button and messages for Italy and Spain: Checkout flows in Italy and Spain can now include Pay Later messaging and a button for Braintree-supported payments.
- Integration of PayPal Vault with PayLater messaging: For PayPal transactions through Braintree, stored payment methods now correctly display Pay Later options.
- Addition of fraud protection and ACH webhooks: Merchants gain more control with webhooks to monitor Braintree fraud alerts and ACH payment notifications.
GraphQL Performance Optimizations
GraphQL, the powerful data query language supported in Magento, sees targeted performance enhancements for complex queries and bulk mutations.
- Improved response times for queries involving categories with permissions enabled: GraphQL queries involving category trees now avoid expensive ACL checks, improving performance.
- Optimized category tree rendering in GraphQL: The category tree root query used by PWA Studio and other frontends is optimized for faster responses.
- Faster response times for bulk cart operations through GraphQL: Adding multiple items to the cart through GraphQL mutation is now optimized and faster than with individual mutations.
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B2B and Accessibility Updates
Magento 2.4.6 expands B2B capabilities for enterprise merchants and improves the accessibility of the storefront experience.
- Availability of Purchase Order for Companies feature through GraphQL API: The PurchaseOrder query is now supported in GraphQL, allowing customized B2B integrations and frontend experiences.
- Enhanced accessibility on the storefront with descriptive labels and keyboard navigation: Storefront compliance with WAI-ARIA standards has been improved with better focus handling and descriptive labels.
Official Release Notes and System Requirements
For full details on every improvement in Magento 2.4.6, merchants can review the official release notes and Magento 2.4.6 system requirements.
Links to official Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 release notes
Magento Open Source 2.4.6 Release Notes: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/commerce-operations/release/notes/magento-open-source/2-4-6
Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 Release Notes: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/commerce-operations/release/notes/adobe-commerce/2-4-6
Overview of Magento 2.4.6 system requirements
The minimum system requirements include:
- PHP 8.1 or PHP 8.2
- MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.4
- Composer 2.2
- Elasticsearch 7.10 (Elasticsearch 8 also supported)
- Redis 7.0
Key Optimization Opportunities with Magento 2.4.6
Upgrading to Magento 2.4.6 provides an ideal opportunity to review your current implementation and identify key areas for modernization, growth, and optimization. Here are some top priorities to consider:
Improving Frontend Page Speed
With Core Web Vitals and page experience becoming key SEO and conversion ranking factors, optimizing page load speed should be a top priority. There are several high-impact opportunities, including:
- Lazy loading of images and videos
- Optimizing image formats and sizes
- Minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Enabling cache bursting for dynamic content
- Migrating to PHP 8.1/8.2 for backend performance lift
- Switching to a faster hosting infrastructure (cloud, CDN)
Progressive Web App Upgrade
Leveraging Magento’s Progressive Web App (PWA) capabilities can significantly boost mobile commerce revenue and engagement. Top upgrades like:
- Installing and configuring the PWA Studio Storefront
- Adding push notifications and app-like features
- Streamlining mobile checkout and navigation
- Improving offline support
Review of Extensions and Integrations
Conduct an audit of all active extensions and integrations with Magento 2.4.6. Key tasks include:
- Checking extension compatibility with 2.4.6
- Removing unused extensions bloating the codebase
- Upgrading integrations to leverage the latest Magento APIs and GraphQL
- Adding missing capabilities via new extensions like B2B, order management, etc.
Security and Compliance Review
A security assessment is highly recommended when upgrading major Magento versions. Important initiatives:
- Enable all relevant security enhancements in 2.4.6
- Conduct penetration testing and identify vulnerabilities
- Review hosting, DNS settings, and TLS implementation
- Implement security monitoring and malware scanning
- Update terms and privacy policy for compliance
Cloud Migration Assessment
Migrating to a cloud-based infrastructure like Adobe Commerce or Amazon Magento can enhance reliability, uptime, and scalability. Key activities include:
- Estimating cloud hosting costs and requirements
- Assessing performance needs and bandwidth
- Planning the migration process to minimize downtime
- Leveraging cloud-optimized services like elastic caching and CDNs
Data and Reporting Upgrade
With the scale of data growing in modern commerce, improving business intelligence and analytics capabilities is crucial. Tactics like:
- Connecting Google Analytics or Segment to track funnel performance
- Building custom reports on revenue, campaigns, and user behavior through BI tools
- Setting up a data warehouse architecture for large-scale analytics
- Using GraphQL for headless data consumption across channels
Other Notable Fixes and Improvements
In Addition to the significant highlights covered above, Magento 2.4.6 includes over 250 fixes and enhancements across the platform.
- Resolution of issues related to Magento installation, upgrade, and deployment: Improved robustness of the setup process and error handling during upgrades to smoothly handle common issues like missing dependencies or environment constraints.
- Addition of drag-and-drop feature for bulk image import in Page Builder: Store admins can now easily drag and drop product images in bulk to add them across Page Builder content and layouts.
- Improved search functionality with support for queries containing quotation marks: Catalog search now handles quotation marks as phrase encapsulators, as expected, improving search accuracy.
- Fixes for incorrect record totals in the staging dashboard: A bug causing the number of displayed changes in the staging preview to be incorrect has now been resolved.
Conclusion and Next Steps for Merchants
Magento 2.4.6 is a milestone release that delivers substantial enhancements in the key areas of performance, security, payments, and platform upgrades. Based on the innovations and hundreds of fixes in this release, all Magento 2 merchants should evaluate their timelines and plan to upgrade their stores.
Here are some best practices for merchants to ensure a successful upgrade and harness the full capabilities of Magento 2.4.6:
- Thoroughly review the release notes to understand all new features, deprecations, and changes.
- Carefully check extension and integration compatibility before upgrading
- Test the upgrade thoroughly on a staging environment first
- Enable new performance and security settings tuned for your business
- Optimize page speed, mobile experience, PWA storefront
- Plan new feature rollouts and migrations like Elasticsearch 8
- Work with a Magento solution partner if needed for smooth upgrade support
The investments in B2B marketing, headless commerce, payment methods, and core platform upgrades make Magento 2.4.6 an essential stepping stone to Magento 2.5. Adopting this latest release positions your business to reap the benefits of Magento’s industry-leading innovations over the coming year. Contact a Magento expert or Adobe Commerce representative to chart your personalized pathway to a faster, more agile digital commerce experience.
