Magento Upgrade Guide 2026: Upgrade Without Breaking It

A Magento upgrade is one of those jobs that is easy to keep putting off, until an unsupported version leaves you without security patches, out of PCI compliance, or unable to install the extension you need. It does not have to be painful. Handled with a proper process, upgrading is a controlled, low-risk project that leaves you on a faster, safer, fully supported store. Rushed or skipped, it is how stores end up broken on go-live day. This guide walks through how to upgrade Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce safely, step by step: checking your version, auditing compatibility, testing extensions and custom code, and using staging properly so nothing breaks in production.

It is written so a store owner understands the process and a developer has a reliable checklist. The order matters, so follow it, and never upgrade straight on your live store.

Magento and Adobe Commerce follow a release lifecycle, and each version stops receiving security and quality patches after a set period. Running an unsupported version is the single biggest reason to upgrade: no patches means known vulnerabilities go unfixed, which also puts your PCI compliance at risk, because PCI DSS requires you to run supported, patched software. As Adobe puts it, keeping your project current is critical to staying secure, PCI-compliant and performant. For a store handling card payments, an out-of-date Magento is a liability, not just a technical debt.

Security is the urgent reason, but not the only one. Newer releases bring performance improvements, PHP and dependency compatibility, new features, and support for the latest extensions, many of which will not run on older versions. Falling behind compounds: the longer you leave it, the bigger the eventual jump, and the more likely you are to be forced into a rushed upgrade under pressure rather than a planned one. This connects directly to security, which we cover in our Magento security guide.

The good news is that a planned upgrade is routine when done properly. The five steps below turn it from a nerve-wracking gamble into a controlled process. If your store is several versions behind, or heavily customised, the jump is larger and closer to a small migration, but the same principles apply: analyse first, test on staging, and never touch production until you have proven the upgrade elsewhere. It is exactly the kind of work our eCommerce team handles as a matter of routine.

Start by confirming exactly what you are running and where you are heading. Check your current Magento version from the admin footer or by running bin/magento –version on the server, and note whether you are on Magento Open Source or Adobe Commerce, since the upgrade path differs slightly. Then identify the latest supported release on the current 2.4.x line as your target, so you upgrade to a version that will keep receiving patches.

How big the jump is shapes the whole project. A minor patch upgrade within the same minor version is quick and low-risk. Moving up several minor versions, or from an old release, is a larger undertaking that may require intermediate PHP, MySQL, Elasticsearch or OpenSearch and Composer updates along the way. Check the system requirements for your target version first, because the environment often needs upgrading before Magento itself.

The outcome of this step is a clear picture: your current version and edition, your target version, the size of the jump, and the environment changes it demands. Adobe’s official upgrade guide lists the exact prerequisites and tested software versions for each release, and is the authoritative reference to check against.

Adobe is explicit that analysis is the most important part of an upgrade, and this is where most broken go-lives are actually caused, or prevented. Before touching any code, audit everything that could conflict with the new version and produce a written upgrade checklist. Work through:

The deliverable here is a detailed checklist of every dependency, its compatibility status, and the work each one needs. A thorough audit is exactly what limits surprises later; skipping it is how a routine upgrade turns into an emergency.

With the audit done, the work of updating and testing begins, and it belongs on a staging copy of your store, never on live. Update each extension to its compatible version, rework custom code that relies on changed or deprecated APIs, and resolve conflicts one at a time so you can trace any issue to its cause. The Composer process itself has evolved on recent versions, using the magento/composer-root-update-plugin and the require-commerce command for Adobe Commerce, so make sure your team is working from the current instructions rather than an old runbook.

Then test everything, methodically. Walk the critical paths first: browsing, search, add to cart, the full checkout and payment, and account creation. Then test admin functions, order processing, every integration, and the areas your custom code touches. Check the storefront across devices and browsers, and confirm performance has not regressed. A structured test plan that covers each function is what separates a confident go-live from crossed fingers.

Take your time here. This phase surfaces the real-world issues the audit predicted and the ones it did not, and every problem you find and fix on staging is one that will not take down your live store. If a heavily customised store throws up major incompatibilities, that is useful information: it may point toward a rebuild or a platform migration rather than a straight upgrade, and it is far better to learn that now.

The single most important rule of any Magento upgrade is that it happens on staging first. Your staging environment should mirror production as closely as possible, same versions, configuration and, ideally, a recent copy of real data, so the upgrade you test is the upgrade you will run. Do the full upgrade there, complete your testing, and only when staging is stable and signed off do you plan the live deployment.

For go-live, prepare properly. Take a full, verified backup of the production database and files, and confirm you can restore it, an untested backup is not a backup. Schedule the deployment for a low-traffic window, put the store into maintenance mode, and have a documented rollback plan so you can revert quickly if something unexpected appears. Run the same upgrade steps you rehearsed on staging, then re-test the critical paths on production before removing maintenance mode.

The job is not finished at go-live. Monitor closely for the first days: watch error logs, performance, checkout and payments, and order flow, and keep support on standby to catch anything the tests missed. Upgrades are also the ideal moment to make them easier next time, by keeping the store closer to the latest version going forward. That ongoing discipline is exactly what a Magento support partner provides, so you never fall dangerously far behind again.

Common questions about upgrading Magento. Get in touch if yours is not here.

Source: Adobe Commerce, Upgrade Guide Overview.

By the 5MS team, UK eCommerce agency and Adobe Solution Partner. Last updated: July 2026.