Frequently Asked Questions

We want businesses and careers built around Magento Open Source to prosper.

Magento Open Source is a mature eCommerce platform, with tens of thousands of businesses worldwide depending on it.

We are ensuring a bright future for Magento by:

• Enabling the development community to enhance the platform
• Providing merchants and agencies the long-term reliability they require
• Giving newcomers an easy entry into the platform

Mage-OS is an eCommerce platform, evolved from Magento Open Source. It can be used to build online stores, in the same way that Magento Open Source can be used.

Because Mage-OS is focused on improving the components that make up the platform, we envision it becoming a foundation that many purpose-built variations of eCommerce systems can be built on, such as:

• A minimal system optimized for low resource consumption
• A system optimized for headless storefronts
• Systems for modern server-side rendered stores
• Specialized B2B e-procurement systems

We are also driving the ecosystem by providing content for merchants and agencies, including comparisons to other platforms, showcases, FAQs, directories, and more.

Our initial focus is on significant performance and usability improvements. We integrate changes that have been suggested as Pull Requests to Magento Open Source by the community, but haven't been included by Adobe due to resource constraints.

Over time, those bug fixes and improvements will become an increasingly large advantage for Mage-OS over Magento.

Magento is a very stable and feature-rich eCommerce platform with:

• A huge number of integrations with third-party services
• A rich and experienced developer community
• Proven scalability for enterprises of all sizes

Mage-OS is and will remain fully compatible with Magento solutions and integrations, while providing additional enhancements on top.

Mage-OS offers:

• Mature and stable platform with a huge amount of existing third-party integrations
• Ownership of the platform by becoming a member of the Mage-OS Association
• Unparalleled flexibility and customizability for your unique business needs
• Large global community of developers, agencies, and support options

• Direct influence and ownership of the platform by becoming a member
• Stable and mature eCommerce platform, evolved from Magento Open Source
• Participation in the vibrant global Magento community
• Faster release cycles for security patches and improvements
• Referral opportunities from the Mage-OS network for merchant services

You don't need to be a developer, but Mage-OS is best suited for businesses that have access to technical resources—either in-house or through an agency partner.

Day-to-day store management (adding products, processing orders, managing customers) is done through a user-friendly admin panel that doesn't require coding knowledge.

However, initial setup, customization, and ongoing maintenance typically require a developer or agency. Check out our Partner Directory to find qualified help.

Not sure if Mage-OS fits your situation? Take our platform decision guide to evaluate your options.

Mage-OS itself is completely free—there are no licensing fees. However, running an online store involves other costs:

These costs are comparable to other enterprise platforms, but you have full control and ownership of your store.

We maintain a network of experienced agencies and developers who specialize in Mage-OS and Magento development:

• Partner Directory – Browse our certified partners by tier
• Discord Community – Ask for recommendations from the community

When evaluating partners, ask about their Magento/Mage-OS experience, request references, and ensure they understand your specific business requirements.

Mage-OS can work for small businesses, but it's important to understand what you're taking on:

Mage-OS may be a good fit if you:

• Have complex product catalogs or unique business logic
• Plan to scale significantly over time
• Need extensive customization that SaaS platforms can't provide
• Have budget for professional development and maintenance

Consider simpler alternatives if you:

• Have a straightforward product catalog (under 1,000 SKUs)
• Don't need heavy customization
• Have a very limited budget (under $10K for setup)
• Prefer to manage everything yourself without technical help

Use our decision guide to help evaluate if Mage-OS is the right fit for your business.

Running a Mage-OS store involves regular maintenance to keep it secure and performing well:

Most merchants work with an agency or developer to handle these technical tasks while they focus on running their business.

Mage-OS is a community-driven project, and we don't provide direct commercial support. However, enterprise support is available through our partner network:

• Hosting partners offer managed Mage-OS hosting with SLAs
• Agency partners provide ongoing maintenance and support contracts
• Independent consultants offer specialized expertise

Visit our Partner Directory to find providers who offer enterprise-level support agreements.

Security is a top priority for Mage-OS:

Our community-driven model allows us to respond to security issues faster than traditional corporate release cycles.

Mage-OS includes features to help you achieve compliance:

• PCI DSS 4.0 – The Mage-OS Lab includes modules for payment page script integrity verification and other 4.0 requirements
• GDPR – Built-in privacy controls, data export/deletion tools, and cookie consent integrations
• SOC 2 – Achievable through proper hosting infrastructure and operational controls

Note: Compliance depends on your overall infrastructure, processes, and third-party integrations. The platform provides the foundation; your implementation determines certification readiness.

Mage-OS was designed for long-term sustainability:

• Legal structure: Registered non-profit association in Poland since 2022
• Democratic governance: Board elected annually by members, not controlled by any single company
• Financial transparency: All contributions and expenses publicly visible via Open Collective
• Global backing: Community leaders from 30+ countries supporting the mission
• Independent oversight: Business Control Committee ensures accountability

Our structure mirrors successful open-source foundations like the TYPO3 Association, designed to outlast any individual contributor or company.

The Mage-OS Association does not directly offer SLAs. However, SLA-backed services are available through our ecosystem:

For vendor assessment purposes, contact our partners directly to discuss SLA requirements. You can also reach out on Discord for recommendations.

The Mage-OS Distribution is a community-driven eCommerce platform built on top of Magento Open Source. It includes all the same core functionality plus community-developed enhancements such as:

• Faster security patches released as soon as they are validated
• Performance optimizations for better page load times
• Innovative features developed through the Mage-OS Lab

The distribution is highly compatible with existing Magento 2 extensions, themes, and integrations, while offering improvements that are not available in Magento itself.

The Mage-OS Lab is our community innovation space where members experiment, develop, and perfect new features before they graduate to the core distribution. It operates as a sandbox for trying new ideas without impacting the stability of the main distribution.

Lab projects have included:

• AI-powered translation tools
• Theme and performance optimizations
• Page Builder widgets and import/export
• Developer experience enhancements

Everyone is welcome to contribute modules, improvements, and ideas to the Lab.

Mage-OS focuses on several key areas:

See our Features page for a detailed breakdown.

Security issues are prioritized and fixed quickly through an open, transparent review process. Critical patches ship as soon as they are validated by the community, rather than waiting for quarterly corporate release schedules. This approach helps merchants stay protected against emerging threats.

Our vision is to ensure the Magento ecosystem thrives for decades to come. Mage-OS provides a community-driven distribution that processes contributions quickly, releases updates on a regular cadence, and innovates through the Mage-OS Lab. We complement the broader ecosystem by giving the community a direct path to improve and extend the platform.

Mage-OS is a mature, production-ready platform. Current initiatives include:

The Mage-OS Distribution is open for contributions and pull requests at github.com/mage-os/mageos-magento2.

You can use Mage-OS today! See the Get Started page for instructions.

If or when Adobe stops supporting Magento Open Source, Mage-OS will be well positioned to step into its place. This is an important aspect of Mage-OS: to provide certainty and a long-term plan for the ecosystem, regardless of factors outside our control.

In the meantime, we make every effort to preserve compatibility with Magento Open Source, while improving performance and adding new features.

Our roadmap focuses on:

1. Immediate priorities: Improving platform stability and performance, reducing total cost of ownership
2. Architecture improvements: Reducing dependencies between modules to allow sites to remove features they don't need
3. Community-driven features: Platform enhancements contributed by the ecosystem
4. Long-term: Enhancing Mage-OS capabilities to remain competitive against other modern ecommerce platforms

See our Roadmap page for more details.

We follow an approach inspired by the Typo3 Association. This model of a community-owned organization provides the vendor-based support and financial backing required for the long-term success of businesses built around Mage-OS.

Mage-OS is fully funded by membership fees and donations from our members and partner companies. All payments are visible through our Open Collective.

The Mage-OS Association is not-for-profit, and invests funds into:

• Operational expenses: Accountant, lawyer, bank fees, website, software and licenses
• Staffing: Part-time staff to organize contributors and efforts
• Development: Funding development of features and improvements to support ecosystem growth

As a legally registered association, we are bound by our statutes, which include multiple approvals for all spending, audits by our Business Control Committee, and an annual budget and financials approved by the members.

Yes! If you would like to see a feature developed and are willing to put funds toward it, talk to us about the Mage-OS grant program. All grants are subject to applicability to the broad community and feasibility of completion.

We are continuing to develop our grant program. If you have an idea for a feature that would benefit the broader Mage-OS community, reach out to us on Discord to discuss the possibility.

Mage-OS and the Magento Association both deal with the Magento ecosystem, but focus on different things.

Magento Association focuses on community events, content, outreach, and representing the Magento brand with Adobe.

Mage-OS Association is more technology-focused—we publish an improved but compatible distribution of Magento and focus on growing independently of Adobe.

We look forward to collaborating with the Magento Association as we both share the same fundamental purpose of supporting the Magento Open Source ecosystem.

Large organizations naturally move at a deliberate pace. Mage-OS was created to complement that with a nimble, community-driven approach—where contributions can be reviewed and merged quickly, and where the community has direct input into priorities.

We built on the Magento open source codebase because it's excellent software with a mature ecosystem. The Mage-OS brand reflects our independent, community-owned identity.

No. Mage-OS was started by a group of companies located mostly in Europe, but we are actively growing our member base all over the world.

Any people with a business that relies on Magento have a vested interest in Magento's success. The Mage-OS Association's statutes have specific requirements for avoiding direct conflicts of interest, which all board members must abide by.

At this time, Mage-OS does not offer its own certification. There are many excellent resources to learn Magento as a merchant, solution architect, or developer. We may consider offering certification in the future if it serves the community's needs.

Members are organizing Mage-OS meetups and participating in events including Meet-Commerce conferences and Unconferences. If you are interested in representing Mage-OS at a conference you are planning to attend, let us know on Discord!

Once a year, all members are invited to the General Assembly of the Mage-OS Association, which governs the association according to its statutes.

No, splitting the ecosystem is the last thing we want to do. Mage-OS was created to revitalize and sustain the community of developers, agencies, merchants, and partners that built their business around Magento.

The best way for us to do that is to stay compatible with Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce to the greatest extent possible, for as long as we can.

Mage-OS is designed to maintain full compatibility with the Magento ecosystem. Extensions, themes, code samples, developer knowledge, and integrations all work seamlessly between the platforms.

Mage-OS makes improvements and fixes to the core, but those changes will not break or fundamentally change the nature of Magento. It is still the same architecture with the same incredible customizability.

No. Mage-OS's intention is to support the ecosystem, not undermine it. The Mage-OS Association will not provide conventional merchant services.

Any requests we receive for development, integration, site builds, or audits are referred to our community of agencies and developers. We exist to help the ecosystem thrive, not to compete with it.

Yes! For Magento 2.4.8+, use our automated migration script:

bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mage-os-lab/migrate-m2-to-mageos/refs/heads/main/migrate-to-mage-os.sh)

Run in developer mode on a local or staging environment. See our Migration Guide for full requirements and manual migration steps.

Yes! You can switch back by updating your composer.json file. You will lose any Mage-OS-specific enhancements in the process, but you can always switch again later.

Yes. It is very similar to moving from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce. You will lose Mage-OS-specific features, but your data will stay intact.

Yes. You will lose any Adobe Commerce-specific features in the process, but both are based on the same Magento core, so all of your data will stay intact. The process is very similar to moving from Adobe Commerce to Magento Open Source.

A straightforward migration typically takes 30 minutes or less. Stores with extensive customizations should allocate adequate testing time to be safe. See our Migration Guide for step-by-step instructions.

Magento from public mirror:

composer create-project --repository-url=https://mirror.mage-os.org \
  magento/project-community-edition

Mage-OS Distribution:

composer create-project --repository-url=https://repo.mage-os.org \
  mage-os/project-community-edition

Available repositories:

• mirror.mage-os.org - Magento Open Source versions since 2.3.7-p3
• upstream-nightly.mage-os.org - Nightly builds from develop branches
• nightly.mage-os.org - Mage-OS Distribution nightly builds

There are many ways to contribute:

By contributing to Mage-OS, you are directly supporting development of the Mage-OS and Magento ecosystem. You can directly influence the direction of the platform and help to keep it modern and relevant.

We are particularly interested in backwards-compatible changes:

• Bug fixes
• Improvements to the developer experience
• Performance improvements
• Improvements to maintainability
• Independent modules which enhance or add functionality

Yes! Meetings happen in Discord in the "Public Meeting Room" voice channel:

Contributors meet to discuss progress, infrastructure, tooling, and new features. Join the Discord and participate! If you just want to listen, that is fine too.

Convert to your timezone

Mage-OS is focused on Magento 2, particularly the supported release line (2.4). For Magento 1, we encourage you to look at OpenMage LTS.

We have had informal discussions with Adobe and the Community Council about merging Mage-OS PRs into Magento Open Source. The exact process is still being worked out.

Regarding divergence: Our goal is to maintain backwards compatibility as long as possible. Mage-OS and Magento will diverge over time as we add enhancements and features that Magento may not.

For new features, we deliver these as separate packages. This allows for an independent release schedule and makes it easier to keep upstream compatibility with Magento Open Source intact.

The approach:

• New features = new modules
• Backwards-compatible improvements to the core can go into the Mage-OS core

Yes, add-on modules are the plan for enhancements and additions to the platform. This has numerous advantages:

• Easier maintenance
• Separate release schedules
• Keeping the main repository closer to the upstream Magento core

The Mage-OS Lab is where many of these modules are developed and tested before being considered for inclusion in the distribution.

The Mage-OS Association does not provide implementation services directly. However, we work with a network of experienced agencies and developers who specialize in Mage-OS and Magento. We encourage you to check out our partners below.

Looking for help with your project? Reach out on Discord and we can connect you with qualified professionals in our community.

If you discover a security vulnerability in Mage-OS, please report it responsibly by emailing security@mage-os.org. Do not disclose security issues publicly until they have been addressed.

If your issue also affects Magento Open Source, please report it directly to Adobe via their HackerOne Bug Bounty program.