All you need to know about Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 release

Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce) is the world’s leading digital commerce solution for merchants and brands. It helps to build engaging shopping experiences for every type of customer — from B2B and B2C to B2B2C. It’s built for enterprise on a scalable, open-source platform with unparalleled security, premium performance, and a low total cost of ownership. Adobe Commerce can be used by businesses of all sizes to reach customers wherever they are, across devices and marketplaces.

And being one of the leading eCommerce development platforms, Adobe Commerce keeps adding new features with timely updates in its tech stack to ensure the site remains up-to-date and secure. 

Adobe recently released the newest version 2.4.6 of its Commerce platform, which includes over 300 several important security fixes and performance improvements. Core Composer dependencies and third-party libraries have been upgraded to the latest versions that are compatible with PHP 8.2. Adobe strongly recommends that all Adobe Commerce customers upgrade to this version as soon as possible to take advantage of these enhancements and ensure the security and stability of their online stores.

Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 highlights

The latest Adobe Commerce (Magento) 2.4.6 release update is a major performance update for store owners. Let’s have a look at some of the key platforms enhancements included in Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 include:

#1. Security enhancements

Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 includes 8 security fixes and platform security improvements to help protect the platform from vulnerabilities and attacks. In addition, detailed auditing of each action and activity from the admin will help close any gaps in the action logs.

• Security fixes and platform security improvements.
• reCAPTCHA validation will no longer fail during checkout when unexpected errors occur during payment processing.
• New system configuration for requiring email confirmation when an admin user changes their email.

#2. Performance & scalability improvements

The platform now has optimized performance for faster load times and improved user experience. With the most recent version, Magento 2.4.6, it is simple to expand and able to satisfy demand with rising orders.

• Processing time is reduced when performing operations involving greater than 100 customers segments 
• Product grid performance is improved by limiting the number of products displayed
• Import performance is improved, allowing for imports of up to 100,000 records per minute
• Order processing performance is improved through load balancing

#3. Platform Improvements

There are several improvements in the platform, including updates to the storefront, product search, and content management system. Improved data import performance to allow customers to onboard larger catalogs. Some of the major updates being:

• PHP 8.2 is supported and PHP 8.1 will continue to work. Support for PHP 7.4 is removed—Magento 2.4.6 will not run on PHP 7.4
• Composer 2.2.x and ElasticSearch 8.x are supported
• Redis 7.0.x is supported—Redis 6.2 remains compatible but will reach end of service by April 2024
• OpenSearch becomes the default search engine for Adobe Commerce on-premise and cloud installations; it is supported as an independent search engine for Magento Open Source
• Support for MariaDB (LTS version) remains, but upgrading to MariaDB 10.6 is recommended
• The DHL scheme is migrated from v6.2 to v10.0
• Outdated JavaScript libraries are updated to the latest versions and outdated dependencies are removed—they remain backward compatible

#4. Enhancements to GraphQL APIs

There are improvements to the GraphQL APIs that enable easier integration with third-party applications. GraphQL API quality and coverage enhancements include support for B2B purchase orders and improved response times in areas of Bulk cart operations and category queries, improving frontend performance in headless deployments;

• Response time is improved for queries involving categories with category permissions enabled
• Category tree rendering in GraphQL is optimized—customers   with large number of categories will benefit the most
• Query response time for bulk cart operations is reduced (when adding up to 500 simple and configurable products)

#5. Improved admin experience

The new Adobe Commerce version has an improved admin experience with several new features, such as order management, customer service, and improved checkout process. Admin performance improvements for large catalogs over 1M SKUs.

• Page Builder compatibility: Page Builder v.1.7.3 is supported
• PWA Studio compatibility: PWA Studio v.13.0.x is supported, and It includes multiple enhancements to improve accessibility
• Upgraded dependencies: The platform now supports upgraded dependencies for PHP, Elasticsearch, and MySQL.
• Merchants can support over 1K+ customer segments without any performance issues

#6: Other improvements

In addition to these features, Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 also includes fixes for many issues, such as static content deployment timeout error, failure of screen readers to read the correct image description, and JavaScript console errors during multi-shipping checkout.

Today merchants are heavily investing in Customer Data Platform (CDP) to activate their data with the global CDP market expected to grow to $6.94 Bn by 2029 from $1.44 Bn in 2022 at a CAGR of 25.4%. Adobe real-time CDP and Adobe Commerce form a powerful duo together, helping build real-time customer profiles and actionable audiences to activate personalized customer experiences. Some of the upcoming intelligent merchandising capabilities include using AI ranking algorithms to personalize and optimize live search results in-session and to personalize and optimize product rank order on category pages. 

Overall, upgrading to Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 is essential for any Adobe Commerce customer who wants to ensure the security, stability, and performance of their online store. Some of the upcoming intelligent merchandising capabilities:

1. March 2023 – Using AI ranking algorithms in Adobe Sensei such as “recommended for you”, “trending” and “most viewed”, to personalize and optimize live search results in-session
2. Q3 2023 – Using AI ranking algorithms in Adobe Sensei such as “recommended for you”, “trending” and “most viewed”, to personalize and optimize product rank order on category pages
3. Later in 2023: 

• Multi product search in live search 
• Multi product rules in browse attributes
  
  Refer here for detailed release notes from Adobe.

Update your Adobe Commerce stores with a trusted partner 

Upgrading to Adobe Commerce’s latest version is the best option to ensure your Magento store is always performing at its best and staying ahead of the competition. The improved performance and security features facilitate smooth transactions, order management, and shopping cart processing. It is recommended to upgrade while keeping a backup of the previous version in case of any issues. 

As an award-winning Adobe Gold Partner, Ranosys has specializations across Adobe Commerce, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Marketo, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Campaign. Along with our certified Adobe developers and consultants, we help you bring together the best of Adobe’s capabilities in terms of commerce, content management system, marketing automation, analytics, testing, and personalization.