What’s New in Magento 2.4.6 & Why They Matter

Key Takeaways

• What is Magento 2.4.6? A March 2023 Magento release that added PHP 8.2 support, 300+ enhancements, 8 security fixes, and improved GraphQL and Braintree integrations.
• Critical 2026 update: Magento 2.4.6 loses security support on August 11, 2026. Any store still on 2.4.6 needs to upgrade to 2.4.8 or 2.4.9 immediately.
• Current version: Magento 2.4.9 (May 12, 2026) with 500+ fixes, PHP 8.5 support, and major infrastructure changes (Redis to Valkey, OpenSearch 3, Symfony 7.4, native PHP MVC replacing Laminas).
• Between 2.4.6 and 2.4.9: 2.4.7 (April 2024) added PHP 8.3 support and frictionless 3DS. 2.4.8 (April 2025) added Google Pay and PayPal in the Braintree checkout modal and dropped Elasticsearch compatibility.
• New release cadence: Starting 2026, Adobe locked in one major Magento version per year, always in May, with a three-year support window per release.

On March 14, 2023, Magento released version 2.4.6. Packed with experience-rich features and additional capabilities, Magento 2.4.6 has significant performance and security improvements. Let’s explore in graphic detail what’s new in this latest version of Magento and why it’s essential for your eCommerce business.

Note: The sections below cover what was new in 2.4.6 at launch. Scroll further for what changed in 2.4.7, 2.4.8, and 2.4.9.

What’s new in Magento 2.4.6?

This super-upgraded version of Magento comes with a bundle of power-packed features and enhancements. Before we dive deeper into them, here are the types of enhancements that come baked in with Magento 2.4.6.

• Security enhancements
• Platform enhancements
• Performance & Scalability enhancements
• General upgrades, replacements & refinements
• Other technical advancements

Key highlights of Magento 2.4.6 Release

Here’s an overview of the enhancements, fixes, and add-ons in Magento 2.4.6:

• 300+ enhancements and quality fixes
• Support for the Latest PHP 8.2
• Solution for 8 major security issues
• Improved GraphQL performance
• Reduced response time
• Compatible with PWA Studio v.13.0.x
• Compatible with Page Builder v.1.7.3
• Upgraded JavaScript libraries

Let’s look into each of these changes and enhancements and how they impact your eCommerce experiences.

Security enhancements in Magento 2.4.6

Here’s an overview of the enhancements, fixes, and add-ons in Magento 2.4.6:

• Admin console has been improved by filling the gaps in action logs.
• The actions within grid views, mass actions, and exports are audited and fixed.
• The checkout reCAPTCHA validation bug has been fixed.
• The Admin user module has been made more secure and powerful by enabling additional verification through email confirmation. With this new option, the admin user will have to go through email confirmation whenever they change their email address.

Platform enhancements in Magento 2.4.6

Magento 2.4.6 comes with enhanced support and improved compatibilities. The platform now supports the following platform enhancements.

• Composer 2.2.x.
• Redis 7.0.x.
• OpenSearch 2.x.
• Elasticsearch 8.x.
• MariaDB 10.6 (LTS version)

2026 update: The stack requirements have moved on significantly. Magento 2.4.9 (current) requires Composer 2.9, Valkey 8 (Redis was replaced), OpenSearch 3, and MariaDB 11.4 or MySQL 8.4. Elasticsearch is no longer supported at all as of Magento 2.4.8.

Performance and scalability enhancements

• A new enable/disable option has been added to ‘Customer Segments Validation.’ This inclusion allows the merchants to reduce the processing time by disabling the ‘Real-time Check if Customer is Matched by Segment’ setting in the configurations. This change improves operational performance, especially when there are 100+ customer segments.
• Product grid performance has been facilitated with a new option where the merchants can limit the number of products in the grid desirably. With this new limit imposed on the number of products displayed, merchants can expect boosted operational efficiency for grids.
• The way merchants import data into the Magento store has been drastically improved and made faster. The new import enhancement allows up to 100,000 records per minute. Merchants can now use the new POST /rest//V1/import/csv REST API endpoint to import data faster and more accurately into their Magento store. Additionally, this upgraded endpoint now supports CSV formats too.
• Merchants who use Magento 2.4.6 cloud infrastructure will now enjoy an improved high-throughput order processing performance powered by load re-balancing. When there is a high volume of simultaneous orders (say, 1000 orders per minute), merchants can balance the load on their database across different nodes. Additionally, they can also re-balance this load through secondary connections, Redis instances, and MySQL database.

General upgrades, replacements & refinements

Technical advancements in Magento 2.4.6

Enhanced Braintree Payment Method: Magento 2.4.6 payment module comes with several refreshing improvements, like enabling the ‘Pay Later’ option for select countries, PayLater messaging with PayPal Vault, added Fraud Protection, and ACH webhooks. In addition to that, there is a Fraud Protection webhook that will be triggered if any risk is detected in Braintree. When the status of an ACH payment is updated to declined or settled, that will send alerts to the ACH webhook

GraphQL Enhancements: This includes improved response time, performance optimization in category tree rendering, reduced query response time for bulk cart operations, order sorting in customer queries, etc.

Page Builder & PWA Studio Compatibility: Magento 2.4.6 is compatible with Page Builder v.1.7.3 and PWA Studio v.13.0.x. This upgrade comes with multiple enhancements to improve the overall accessibility.

Magento Commerce Extension metapackage: Magento 2.4.6 introduces the new metapackage v1.1.0 that bundles select extensions automatically with the core release. When the Magento version is upgraded to the latest core release, the versions of these extensions are installed in appropriate versions, simplifying the process of upgrading the extensions separately. The Magento Commerce Extension metapackage 2.4.6 includes two extensions, namely Bolt Quick Checkout and Magento I/O Events for Magento Commerce.

Magento I/O Events for Magento Commerce: This new enablement captures events and data, and transfers them from Magento Commerce to other associated systems. This allows developers to build cloud-native apps in App Builder that are integrated with Commerce events such as order status changes, inventory updates, and changes in price. Additionally, this capability can be utilized to exchange data for the orchestration of the entire shopping journey across the mission-critical systems of Magento Commerce.

Integration with Magento IMS: A few disparate modules, such as adobe-ims, adobe-ims-api, admin-adobe-ims are decoupled from the Magento Commerce 2.4.6 core code and are now packaged as the new adobe-ims-metapackage v2.2.0. This does not imply any change in functionality.

What’s New in Magento 2.4.7? (April 9, 2024)

Magento 2.4.7 was released on April 9, 2024 with 200+ quality fixes and 13 critical security fixes. Key additions:

• PHP 8.3 support added (alongside PHP 8.2)
• Frictionless 3DS transactions: customers are only 3DS challenged when the bank requests it, reducing cart abandonment
• Braintree dispute webhooks: dispute status now passed to Commerce and searchable in the Sales Order grid
• New indexer:set-status CLI command for dynamic indexer management (suspended, invalid, valid)
• Enhanced GraphQL: caching improvements, resolver caches, schema support for custom attributes, headless order cancellation
• Support for updated FedEx and UPS shipping services
• Compatible with PWA Studio v14.0

What’s New in Magento 2.4.8? (April 8, 2025)

Magento 2.4.8 shipped in April 2025 with focused improvements on security, checkout, and platform compatibility:

• New CLI command for encryption key rotation, replacing the previous buggy process
• Improved OTP (one-time password) settings
• Duo Security 2FA upgraded to Web SDK v4
• Elasticsearch compatibility dropped entirely — OpenSearch 2.x only
• Default indexer mode changed to “Update by Schedule” on new installs and upgrades
• Braintree express payment: Google Pay and PayPal shipping options now appear directly in the payment modal, cutting checkout steps
• Bulk tier price updates via /V1/products/tier-prices REST API
• PHPUnit upgraded to v10
• GraphQL: resend confirmation email mutation, customer groups/segments with pagination, gift options improvements, guest order returns

What’s New in Magento 2.4.9? (May 12, 2026, Current)

Magento 2.4.9 is the largest infrastructure jump in the 2.4.x line since 2.4.0, with 500+ bug fixes (largest count in 2.4.x history). It is also the first release under Adobe’s new annual cadence — one major version per year, always in May, with a three-year support window.

Stack requirements

• PHP 8.4 minimum, PHP 8.5 supported, PHP 8.3 upgrade-only, PHP 8.2 no longer supported
• Valkey 8 replaces Redis for caching
• OpenSearch 3 (up from 2.x)
• Symfony 7.4 (up from Symfony 6)
• Composer 2.9
• MySQL 8.4 or MariaDB 11.4

Core framework changes

• Laminas MVC replaced with native PHP implementation
• Zend_Cache replaced with Symfony Cache
• TinyMCE replaced with HugeRTE (WYSIWYG editor)
• OAuth moved from third-party library to native PHP functions

Payment and checkout

• 12+ Braintree changes, including Apple Pay support on Chrome and Firefox
• CAPTCHA now enforced on API account creation endpoints (may break unauthenticated registration flows in ERP-integrated B2B stores if you upgrade unprepared)
• Bulk async API performance restored (ERP order sync improvements)

How Magento 2.4.6 benefits eCommerce store owners?

One of the primary advantages of upgrading to Magento 2.4.6 is improved performance. This improvement in performance means that customers can navigate through the site with ease, leading to a better user experience. Here are the other business benefits and technical advantages you can expect with this update:

• Removed or reduced dependencies in many areas
• Enhancements in the platform’s architecture
• Well-optimized codebase
• Faster response times
• Enhanced security
• Maximized scalability
• Number of bugs largely reduced to a great extent

Why should you upgrade to Magento 2.4.6?

2026 update: Do not upgrade to 2.4.6 today. It loses security support on August 11, 2026. Upgrade to 2.4.8 or 2.4.9 instead, both of which are actively supported.

Here are the top 4 reasons why you should make the upgrade right away:

• To get rid of compatibility issues: By upgrading, merchants can also eliminate compatibility issues that may arise with older versions.
• To enjoy an error-free experience: A number of pressing concerns and issues that were thought perennial have been fixed and resolved in this latest version of Magento.
• End-of-Life is nearing: End-of-life risk has moved forward: 2.4.5 and 2.4.6 both lose security support on August 11, 2026. Stores on 2.3.x or 2.4.5/2.4.6 need to upgrade to 2.4.8 or 2.4.9 to stay compliant with PCI DSS.

In 2026, the recommendation is to upgrade to Magento 2.4.8 (supported until roughly April 2028) or Magento 2.4.9 (supported until May 2029). 2.4.6 is no longer a viable upgrade target.

If you don’t upgrade now, here’s what you’ll be missing out on:

• Improved admin action logs
• Tough-to-crack passwords
• Accurate reCAPTCHA validation
• Enhanced accessibility through Sign In visual text labels, verbal descriptive labels
• Uncompromised user experience for keyboard-only shoppers
• PayLater messaging
• Local Payment Methods (LPM)
• Faster response time with GraphQL
• Super-optimized shopping cart and checkout
• Instant addition of products to meet the minimum quantity
• Accurate calculation of the total refunds
• Error-free Google reCAPTCHA for storefront orders
• Appropriate product images in mini cart
• Enhancements in coupon management
• No errors in coupon code generation
• Validation logic for Manage Coupon Codes
• Reward points auto-integrated into the customer’s account
• New option to filter coupon reports
• Enhanced Order Total report
• Better search suggestions for the users
• Correct Free Shipping Cart rule for calculating FedEx, USPS, and UPS shipping rates
• No errors in multiple unit tests
• Better Wishlist modules that work well with Magento 2 versions

Wrapping up

Magento 2.4.6 was a meaningful milestone at launch in March 2023, but the platform has moved on. Magento 2.4.9 (May 2026) is the current release, with 2.4.8 as a safer intermediate target if you want proven stability before jumping to the latest.

If you are still on Magento 2.4.6 or earlier, upgrading before August 11, 2026 is not optional — after that date, your store will run without security coverage.

For scoping on your specific upgrade path (2.4.6 to 2.4.8, 2.4.6 to 2.4.9, or a Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration if you are still on Magento 1), see our Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration services or our full Magento development services. For a broader platform overview, read our complete guide to Magento, or talk to our team for a scoped conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Magento 2.4.6 still supported?

Only until August 11, 2026. After that date, Adobe stops issuing security patches for Magento 2.4.5 and 2.4.6. Any store still running these versions after that date will be exposed to unpatched vulnerabilities and out of PCI DSS compliance.

Should I upgrade to Magento 2.4.6 or a newer version?

Never target 2.4.6 for an upgrade today. It loses security support in weeks. Upgrade to Magento 2.4.8 (supported until roughly April 2028) or 2.4.9 (supported until May 2029). Choose 2.4.8 if you want proven stability with a slightly older stack; choose 2.4.9 if you want the longest support window and can handle the larger infrastructure jump.

What’s the difference between Magento 2.4.6 and 2.4.9?

Three years of releases separate them. 2.4.6 (March 2023) required PHP 8.2, Composer 2.2, Redis 7, OpenSearch 2, MariaDB 10.6. 2.4.9 (May 2026) requires PHP 8.4/8.5, Composer 2.9, Valkey 8 (not Redis), OpenSearch 3, MariaDB 11.4. Core framework changes include Laminas MVC being replaced with native PHP, Zend_Cache with Symfony Cache, TinyMCE with HugeRTE, and 500+ bug fixes in 2.4.9 alone.

How long does a Magento 2.4.6 to 2.4.9 upgrade take?

A direct jump from 2.4.6 to 2.4.9 typically takes 4 to 8 weeks minimum. You are skipping multiple PHP versions and major infrastructure changes (Redis to Valkey, OpenSearch 2 to 3, Symfony 6 to 7.4). Audit every custom module for PHP 8.5 compatibility first, plan a hosting migration window, then run the Magento upgrade.

Do my Magento extensions work with 2.4.9?

Compatibility varies by extension. Most actively maintained extensions have 2.4.9 builds within 2 to 4 weeks of release, but abandoned or single-vendor extensions may not. Test every extension in staging before upgrading, and engage vendors about their 2.4.9 compatibility timeline. Extensions that rewrite core classes, use deprecated PHP features, or depend on the old Redis client are most likely to break.

When is the next Magento release after 2.4.9?

Under Adobe’s new annual cadence, the next major release will be in May 2027. Monthly isolated security patches will continue for all supported versions, with the next major security patch (2.4.9-p1) expected around November 2026.