Magento 2.4.6 has arrived! Top changes

Our Top 5 changes:

1. GraphQL Performance

The GraphQL layer has received many improvements resulting in a performance boost. This is terrific news for every e-commerce business using Headless storefronts and many other approaches utilizing GraphQL, for example Hyva Themes. In addition to performance changes, purchase orders are finally available with GraphQL.

2. Categories

Websites with numerous nested categories will notice a significant performance increase due to improvements in the rendering of the category list. These will also be evident with GraphQL access and with category permissions enabled. A crucial bugfix: category-related full page cache is no longer cleared after a new shipment on any order is created. This should keep the category cache valid until one of the contained products is out of stock as intended. Another much appreciated quality fix is related to expanding nested categories on mobile devices – now expanding works as expected.

3. Import

A new POST endpoint to REST API for importing CSV files with data updates has been introduced. From this release you can create, update and delete products, pricing and customers. This functionality is similar to the admin import panel. It is also blazing fast, processing thousands of records in the blink of an eye (up to 100,000/min).

4. Indexing

Have you noticed missing products in your storefront catalog? Magento fixes that with release 2.4.6. Up till now Price Indexer removed current data regardless of its state. After the changes, old data will be dropped after the new indexer executes fully.

5. Yearly release cycle

This may sound trivial but this is one of the most important changes implemented with this update. Magento finally settles on a yearly release cycle, allowing better time scheduling for annual upgrades. From a business perspective this is great news and an opportunity to plan ahead with less risk. From a developer standpoint it's extremely important for project maintenance and security.

Runner ups

A. Deprecated jQuery Migrate removal

Removing this library will reduce errors thrown in the browser console, which will help with SEO based on the Lighthouse assessment – also by reducing resources to be downloaded.

B. URL Rewrites

Previously, when a product was set to Not Visible Individually in a default scope, its SEO-friendly URL was not regenerated, even when overridden in store view scope. Now this is fixed and Magento can regenerate a URL in a given context.

C. Deployment improvements

In the deployment process the setup:upgrade command no longer recreates database triggers. This shortens downtimes. Additionally, there was a bug where setup:upgrade was changing some indexers from the on schedule to on save status – this is no longer the case.

Enhancements worth mentioning

• You can use a custom SMTP provider without a 3rd party module
• The new Media Gallery is now enabled by default
• Page Builder can now drag&drop in bulk in addition to one-by-one import to a gallery

Summary

The Magento 2.4.6 release is for sure the current go-to, desired version. The improvements are significant and the bug fixes crucial. The performance uplift has a real world impact. Previous versions may decrease customer experience with missing products, slow loading of product list pages and much more. The latter may also lower your Google indexing score. Our advice is to upgrade in the nearest future – the sooner the better.

Sources:

• Adobe
• Mark Shust