14 DAY TRIAL // Just before Drupal released its highly awaited 8.0 version, the Magento team also released its own major branch, version 2.0.
Magento, the world's leading e-commerce platform, has been sitting at version 1.x for some years, for both Enterprise (commercial) and Community (open source) editions.
A revamp of its slow codebase was much needed, something that some of us could have told you three or four years ago, when page speed started beginning to be a prime factor for search engine rankings.
The new version of Magento, released on November 17, is above all fast(er). This was the first thing we noticed when we tested it. The second was the new admin UI, which is now much simpler and easier to use, adopting a simplified interface that reminds us of OpenCart and Prestashop.
Overall, Magento 2.0 is a much nicer experience compared to the old version, and if all the store management features are there (and they are), then don't expect Magento to lose any market share in the self-hosted e-commerce sector any time soon.
Upgrading Magento will be simpler in the future
Other changes included with Magento 2.0 are a new responsive default store theme, a simpler checkout process, and a modular code architecture which will make upgrading a much simpler experience.
The Magento team also committed to quarterly releases starting with Q1 2016 and announced a more complex tiered licensing model.
In other corporate news, eBay spun out Magento into its own self-standing company: Magento Commerce. eBay bought Magento from Varien Inc. back in 2010. eBay is also preparing to spin out PayPal into a separate business and has previously left Craigslist ownership this past June.
The new patronage has announced it will continue to support the open source edition of the platform, which is at its core of its business, driving customers that want more features to its commercial edition. Magento is currently powering over 250,000 online stores worldwide.
