In previous articles, we covered the key differences between Magento 1 and Magento 2, including the major improvements in architecture, performance, security, and scalability introduced with Magento 2.
In practice, the move is often treated as a long-term platform rebuild rather than a simple version upgrade. Despite Adobe discontinuing official Magento 1 support in 2020, nearly 100,000 active stores are still running on Magento 1 today, often with years of accumulated customizations and legacy extensions in place.
TMO Group has over 10 years of experience as a Magento-certified agency, supporting brands with Magento migrations, custom module development, and long-term platform optimization.
Whether you are still evaluating the transition or already committed to migrating to Magento 2, this guide will help you understand the key steps involved, the structural changes to expect, and the areas that are often underestimated during execution.
If you are still researching the differences between the two platforms, we cover them in more detail here:
0. Evaluate Your Current Magento 1 Build
If you are considering a migration to Magento 2, it is usually because your current Magento 1 setup is starting to show structural limitations. For many businesses, the trigger is an accumulation of constraints that become harder to solve with incremental fixes, rather than a single issue. These include:
- Performance constraints: Slow page load times, weaker SEO performance, and instability under peak traffic.
- Rising maintenance overhead: Increased effort and cost to keep an outdated system running securely and reliably.
- Development bottlenecks: Longer turnaround times for bug fixes, feature development, and ongoing improvements due to legacy code and technical debt.
- Integration limitations: Difficulty connecting modern tools into the stack, especially when many third-party providers no longer support Magento 1.
- Security and compliance risk: Greater exposure due to unsupported infrastructure and missing security updates, which can impact IT governance and regulatory requirements.
- Scalability constraints: Challenges supporting new business requirements such as hybrid B2B/B2C models, multi-brand expansion, or multi-region operations.
- Major platform renovation moments: Migration is often accelerated by broader initiatives such as rebranding, redesigns, or restructuring the commerce architecture.
Before planning the migration itself, it is usually worth assessing the current state of your Magento implementation to identify where complexity and risk are concentrated:
It is also important to set realistic expectations around budgeting. Magento migration costs can vary significantly depending on the scope of the rebuild, with smaller projects with limited customization or catalog starting from US $10,000 while more complex migrations involving extensive theme redesign, custom module refactoring, or multiple integrations often reaching US $50,000.
In many cases, the storefront theme rebuild and the refactoring of custom business logic are among the largest contributors to overall effort and cost, especially when the Magento 1 installation has been heavily customized over time.
We cover the main cost drivers in more detail, along with practical strategies to reduce unnecessary migration overhead, in a separate article:
1. Pre-Migration Planning and Preparation
A successful Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration is usually determined long before development begins. The pre-migration phase is where teams define scope, reduce unnecessary complexity, and ensure the right foundations are in place before the rebuild starts. Key activities include:
Define goals, scope, and timeline
Migration projects vary widely in size, but enterprise-level rebuilds often take six months or longer. Establishing clear objectives early helps align stakeholders, prioritize workstreams, and prevent scope drift as the project progresses.
Create verified backups and rollback plans
A complete backup should include the database, catalog, media assets, customer records, and order history. Backups should be repeated throughout the project, with integrity checks in place and a clear rollback strategy in case issues arise during deployment.
Inventory your current implementation
Before migrating, teams should document the full Magento 1 ecosystem, including:
- storefront theme and UX customizations
- integrations (analytics, ERP, PIM, CRM, payment systems)
- custom-developed business logic
- installed extensions and dependencies
This inventory becomes the foundation for migration planning, and helps clarify what features are critical, need improvement, or are no longer required.
Audit and clean up legacy complexity
Magento 1 stores often accumulate outdated functionality over time. Migration is an opportunity to review which features should be retained, redesigned, replaced with native Magento 2 capabilities, or removed entirely.
Set up a staging environment that matches production
Magento 2 should first be installed in a staging environment that closely mirrors production. Differences in server configuration, PHP versions, caching layers, or permissions can introduce issues that only appear late in the project if not replicated early.
Prepare internal ownership and cross-functional involvement
Migration impacts more than development. Project leads should involve key functions early, including design, SEO, operations, and data teams. Areas such as analytics tracking, integration dependencies, and content workflows are often underestimated when brought in too late.
We cover team preparation and stakeholder alignment in more detail here:
2. Migration Execution: Core Workstreams During the Upgrade
Once planning and discovery are complete, the migration phase focuses on rebuilding the Magento 1 store on Magento 2 while ensuring that data, functionality, and integrations remain consistent. This stage is rarely a single linear task, with most projects involve several workstreams running in parallel:
Data migration and validation
Magento provides tooling to migrate core data such as store configurations, product catalogs, customer accounts, and order history. However, not all data transfers cleanly, especially when Magento 1 implementations include custom attributes or non-standard structures.
Data migration should always be treated as an iterative process, with repeated validation to confirm accuracy and integrity across key business workflows.
Theme rebuild or redesign
Magento 1 themes are not compatible with Magento 2. In practice, this means the storefront must be rebuilt, whether the goal is replication or a full redesign.
This is also the point where architectural decisions may come into scope, such as adopting a modern frontend stack (Hyvä, PWA, or headless/composable approaches), depending on long-term performance and flexibility requirements.
Extension review and replacement
Every extension in the Magento 1 ecosystem must be evaluated individually. Many third-party modules are no longer supported, while others may be redundant due to native Magento 2 capabilities.
Extension rationalization is often one of the most time-consuming parts of migration, especially for stores with heavy dependency footprints.
Custom code refactoring and module redevelopment
Custom business logic built into Magento 1 typically requires refactoring rather than direct migration. Magento 2’s modular architecture provides stronger long-term extensibility, but it also demands cleaner implementation practices.
At TMO, we frequently support migration projects through clean, containerized custom module development designed for maintainability, performance, and future upgrade compatibility.
We previously covered Magento’s approach to custom business logic and extensibility in more detail here:
Integrations and configuration rebuilding
Finally, critical integrations must be re-established and tested across the Magento 2 environment, including analytics tracking, payment systems, fulfillment workflows, ERP/PIM connections, and third-party business tools.
These dependencies are often where migration timelines expand if not addressed early in parallel with development.
3. Launch and Post-Migration Stabilization
The final stage of a Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration is not only deployment, but validation that the new platform performs reliably under real business conditions. Launch should be treated as a controlled transition rather than a single event. Key areas to address before go-live include:
Comprehensive testing across critical workflows
Beyond general site functionality, teams should validate performance, responsiveness, and content integrity across the full storefront experience. Particular attention should be given to revenue-critical systems such as:
- payment gateways and checkout flows
- shipping methods and fulfillment logic
- tax configuration and regional rules
- customer account and order history access
SEO preservation and traffic continuity
Magento migration introduces structural changes that can impact organic visibility if not managed carefully. Teams should ensure that URL structures are preserved where possible, or that proper redirections are implemented consistently across:
- product and category pages
- CMS and landing pages
- multi-language storefronts
- legacy indexed content
For decoupled implementations (headless or composable architectures), it is especially important to confirm that frontend routing and SEO signals are reflected correctly in staging before launch.
Internal documentation and team training
Magento 2 introduces meaningful changes in backend workflows, administration, and extension management. Internal teams should be trained on updated processes, especially for merchandising, content publishing, and operational tasks that may work differently post-migration.
User acceptance testing and stakeholder alignment
Before go-live, migration projects typically require an adjustment phase where key stakeholders validate the platform against business requirements. UAT should be structured to avoid late-stage scope changes that disrupt launch readiness.
Final data synchronization and cutover planning
Since migration projects often run over extended timelines, a final synchronization step is required to ensure that recent orders, customer updates, and catalog changes are accurately reflected in Magento 2 before switching traffic.
4. Post-Migration Optimization and Long-Term Maintenance
A Magento 2 migration does not end at go-live. The first weeks after launch are typically focused on stabilization, performance tuning, and ensuring the new platform is operating reliably under real traffic conditions. Key priorities in the post-migration phase include:
Benchmarking and performance validation
Once Magento 2 is live, teams should audit the new environment against previous baseline performance. This often includes simulating peak traffic scenarios, validating caching behavior, and confirming that storefront speed and infrastructure scaling meet expectations.
Monitoring, diagnostics, and issue resolution
Even with thorough pre-launch testing, most migration projects require follow-up fixes and optimizations after deployment. The goal is to identify edge cases early and address them systematically as the platform stabilizes.
Managing scope and phased improvements
As migration projects progress, additional enhancement ideas often emerge. In many cases, it is more effective to assign non-critical improvements to a Phase 2 roadmap rather than introducing late-stage changes that delay launch or destabilize the build.
Ongoing maintenance and upgrade planning
Magento 2 requires continuous maintenance to remain secure and compatible over time, including applying security patches, managing extension updates, and planning for Adobe’s release cadence.
We cover Magento versioning and upgrade cycles in more detail here:
Checklist: Steps for Magento 1 to Magento 2 Migration
To summarize the migration roadmap, the checklist below provides a high-level view of the main steps involved in a Magento 1 to Magento 2 upgrade, along with the internal roles that typically own each workstream:
| Step | Primary Owner |
|---|---|
| Define migration goals, scope, and timeline | Project Lead |
| Create verified backups and rollback plan | Development Team / DevOps |
| Inventory themes, extensions, custom code, and integrations | Technical Lead |
| Audit and clean up legacy functionality | Project Lead + Stakeholders |
| Set up staging environment matching production | DevOps / Development Team |
| Align internal teams and responsibilities | Project Lead |
| Install Magento 2 environment in staging | Development Team |
| Run core data migration (catalog, customers, orders) | Development Team |
| Validate migrated data integrity and workflows | QA + Ops Team |
| Rebuild or redesign storefront theme | UX/Design + Frontend Dev |
| Evaluate and replace extensions where needed | Development Team |
| Refactor custom modules and business logic | Development Team |
| Rebuild integrations and configurations (ERP, PIM, analytics) | Development Team + Ops |
| Perform full testing (checkout, shipping, tax, performance) | QA Team |
| Implement SEO preservation and URL redirection plan | SEO + Development Team |
| Conduct internal training and documentation | Project Lead + Ops Team |
| Run UAT with stakeholders and finalize adjustments | Stakeholders + PM |
| Execute final data synchronization before cutover | Development Team |
| Launch Magento 2 storefront with monitoring in place | DevOps + Project Lead |
| Benchmark performance post-launch and optimize | DevOps / Development Team |
| Address post-launch issues and stabilization fixes | Development Team + Support |
| Assign non-critical improvements to Phase 2 roadmap | Project Lead |
| Establish ongoing patching, support, and upgrade cycle | DevOps / Support Team |
Upgrading to Magento 2 with TMO
Migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is typically not a simple version upgrade. For most businesses, it involves rebuilding critical parts of the platform, reassessing legacy extensions and custom logic, and coordinating multiple workstreams across development, operations, and internal stakeholders.
A successful migration depends on clear scoping, realistic planning, and disciplined execution across the full lifecycle: from discovery and staging through launch and post-migration stabilization.
TMO Group supports brands as an Adobe-certified Magento partner, with over 10 years of experience in Magento development, custom module engineering, and long-term platform optimization. We have delivered Adobe Commerce and Magento projects across a wide range of industries, with client work including global brands such as Henry Schein, FitLine, APExBIO, and more.
To discuss your current Magento implementation or migration roadmap, you can reach out to our team for a tailored assessment and project plan.
