Magento releases version 2.1

Magento released the latest version of Magento Digital Commerce today: version 2.1, for both the Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition. Among other things, this release fixes several hundred bugs that Magento and the community found after Magento 2 first launched. That’s a welcome development. Magento is now actually integrating code improvements from the community into the software, something that previously happened rarely, if at all. Building these improvements into new releases will make the platform more stable and secure, with fewer bugs. Overall, the product has taken a clear step up in quality and stability. This new version also brings the following improvements:

PayPal

Shoppers who want to pay for their order with PayPal can now stay in the online store. Previously, they were sent to PayPal’s payment platform, and leaving the retailer’s website created a risk that they’d abandon their purchase. With that step gone, shoppers stay in the store instead of dropping off, so conversion among PayPal users will go up.

Braintree

Braintree is a major US payment processor, though it’s less well known in Europe and the Netherlands. Changes introduced in Magento 2.1 make it easier for merchants to get their PCI compliance in order. PCI compliance is only required when credit card data is actually stored in Magento. For Dutch merchants, this feature is less relevant: most of them use a third party to handle payments and store credit card data, so they don’t need to be PCI compliant themselves.

Admin improvements

The improved admin interface makes it faster and easier to search for information such as search terms, products, categories, and CMS pages, so administrators can get their work done more quickly.

You can download the new release from the Magento website. For a complete list of improvements and bug fixes, see the Release Notes.