Magento 1 to 2 Migration

Zero-downtime migration to Magento 2 with your data — and your search rankings — preserved.

Magento 1 reached end-of-life in June 2020. It no longer receives official security patches, which is both a serious risk and a PCI-DSS compliance problem for any store taking payments. Extensions are aging out, fewer developers still support it, and every month on Magento 1 widens the gap. A Magento 1 to 2 migration is the way off that risk — but it is important to understand it is not a simple upgrade.

Moving from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is a re-platform. The codebase, theme, and extension architecture are different, so the work involves migrating your data (products, customers, orders, categories), finding Magento 2 equivalents for your Magento 1 extensions, rebuilding the theme, and porting custom functionality. The single most important — and most frequently botched — part is preserving SEO so you do not lose the rankings you have spent years earning.

This page is for merchants still on Magento 1, or on an old, unmaintainable Magento 2 build that needs a clean re-platform. As Magento-focused specialists, we run migrations with zero downtime at cutover and SEO preserved by design, and we are candid below about timelines, data, and when migrating is — and is not — the right move.

What's included in a Magento 2 migration

A migration is more than copying a database. A complete Magento 1 to 2 migration service covers:

Migration audit and inventory

A full accounting of your extensions, customizations, integrations, and data volume, so nothing is discovered halfway through the project.

Data migration

Products, categories, customers, orders, reviews, and store configuration moved using Magento's Data Migration Tool plus custom scripts for anything non-standard, with reconciliation to confirm nothing is lost.

Extension and feature parity

Every Magento 1 extension mapped to a Magento 2 equivalent, replaced, or rebuilt — so you launch with the functionality you rely on, not a stripped-down store.

Theme rebuild

A new frontend on Magento 2: Luma, a fast Hyva theme, or a headless React/Next.js storefront, depending on your goals and budget.

SEO and URL preservation

A complete 301 redirect map, preserved URL keys, migrated metadata and structured data, and an XML sitemap — the work that protects your rankings through the move.

Custom code port

Business logic, integrations, and API connections rebuilt for Magento 2's architecture.

Zero-downtime cutover

An incremental delta sync of orders and customers created during the build, so we switch over without freezing your store or losing recent data.

QA, UAT, and post-launch optimization

Full testing, your team's sign-off, and a performance pass after go-live so you do not land on a slow Magento 2.

Our Magento 1 to 2 migration process

  1. 01

    Audit and scope

    We inventory data, extensions, customizations, and integrations, and agree on the target frontend (Luma, Hyva, or headless) before any code is written.

  2. 02

    Data migration dry runs

    We run the migration repeatedly on staging, fixing mapping issues each time, so the final run is predictable rather than a launch-night gamble.

  3. 03

    Rebuild theme and port customizations

    We build the Magento 2 frontend and re-implement custom features and integrations for the new architecture.

  4. 04

    SEO preservation plan

    We build and test the 301 redirect map and URL structure against your live site — the step most often rushed, and the reason migrations lose rankings when they do.

  5. 05

    Staging QA and UAT

    We test checkout, payments, integrations, and edge cases, then hand it to your team for user acceptance before anything goes live.

  6. 06

    Incremental sync and cutover

    We sync the orders and customers created since the last data run and switch over with zero downtime.

  7. 07

    Post-launch monitoring and optimization

    We watch rankings, errors, and Core Web Vitals after launch and tune, so the migration is a step up in performance, not just a platform change.

Our experience

Proven migration experience

We have migrated live Magento stores to Magento 2 with their catalogs, customers, orders, and search rankings intact. Most of that work is covered by client confidentiality, so we do not publish individual migration projects here — but we are glad to walk through relevant examples, our approach, and the results confidentially during scoping. What we commit to publicly is the method on this page: data migration with reconciliation, full SEO and URL preservation, and a zero-downtime cutover.

When to migrate to Magento 2 — and when to rethink

If you are on Magento 1, doing nothing is not really an option — but migrating straight to Magento 2 is not automatically the right move either. Here is the honest version.

Migrating to Magento 2 makes sense when

  • You are still on Magento 1 and need off an unsupported, non-PCI-compliant platform — the security case alone is decisive.
  • Magento fits your business: a large or complex catalog, B2B needs, heavy customization, or requirements a hosted platform cannot meet.
  • You are on an old, unmaintainable Magento 2 build and want a clean re-platform with a modern frontend.

Pause and reconsider when

  • You are a small store with a simple catalog — be honest about whether Magento's power is worth its complexity, or whether a hosted platform would serve you better. We would rather tell you that now than after a migration.
  • You are tempted to migrate 'like for like' onto Luma to save money — landing on a slow Magento 2 with no frontend plan often just recreates your old problems on a newer version.

When Magento is the right platform, we migrate you cleanly. When it is not, we will say so before you spend the budget.

Frequently asked questions

Is Magento 1 still safe to use?

No. Magento 1 reached end-of-life in June 2020 and no longer receives official security patches. For any store processing payments that is both a real breach risk and a PCI-DSS compliance failure. Third-party patch services exist as a stopgap, but they are a holding measure, not a substitute for migrating to a supported platform.

Will I lose my SEO rankings when I migrate?

Not if the migration is done properly. Ranking loss in migrations comes from broken URLs and missing redirects, not from Magento 2 itself. We preserve URL keys where possible, build a complete 301 redirect map, and carry over metadata, structured data, and your sitemap. We test all of it on staging before cutover, because recovering lost rankings after the fact is far harder than preserving them during the move.

Can you migrate all my data — orders, customers, and products?

Yes. We migrate products, categories, customers, orders, reviews, and configuration using Magento's official Data Migration Tool, plus custom scripts for any non-standard or heavily customized data. We reconcile counts and spot-check records after each run so you can confirm nothing was dropped.

How long does a Magento 1 to 2 migration take?

It depends on catalog size, the number of extensions and customizations, and how much frontend work you want at the same time. A relatively standard store is a shorter project; one with many custom extensions, complex integrations, or a full headless rebuild takes longer. We give a firm timeline after the migration audit, once we can see exactly what has to move.

How much does a Magento 1 to 2 migration cost?

We don't publish fixed prices, because a migration is scoped to your store and quoted per client. The main cost drivers are the volume of catalog and customer data to move, the custom extensions and theme that have to be rebuilt for Magento 2, the number of integrations to reconnect, and any data-cleansing the move calls for. A clean, standard store is a smaller project; a heavily customised store with years of data and many integrations is a larger one. We give a firm quote after the migration audit, once we can see exactly what has to move — get in touch and we'll scope it with you.

Can I keep my current design when I migrate?

We can recreate your existing design on Magento 2, but Magento 1 themes cannot be carried over directly — the frontend has to be rebuilt regardless. That is actually an opportunity: since the theme is being rebuilt anyway, many merchants use the migration to move to a faster Hyva theme or a headless storefront instead of replicating an aging design. We lay out the options with their cost and performance trade-offs.

Related services

Still on Magento 1?

Get a free migration audit — a review of your data and extensions, and a clear plan to move to Magento 2 without losing rankings.

Request a migration audit