Better start with 1.9 or with 2 ? Pro / Cons

[Morane23]

Hello, hope this is the right section for my questions, if not please relocate it.

I habe no experience with Magento and now i am not sure if it better to start with 1.9 or with 2.
 
 
Right here the pros and cons that i found:
 
Pro 1.9 :
Reliable, stability, tons of templates and extensions.

Con 1.9: invest time and money for a shop that has a limited lifetime, 2018 the security updates will be discontinued.

 
Pro 2 : more responsive, needs less resources, security, performance, multilayer, it is the future, i directly learn the new Magento and save time and money cause i don't need to change

Con 2: Right now, few temples and extensions, perhaps bugs, developer are new to the systems, when there are problems, they are harder to solve.

 
Questions about how to realize it:

1. Is it possible to work on the shop, while it is online? Do i need a host wo has a special offers how to work in magenta while shop is online? Cronjob? Is developing the shop while online, easier to realize in Magento 2?
 

 
2. Are there differences between 1.9 and 2 how templates and extensions are installed?
 
 
3. Would you recommend that i start wit 1.9 or 2?
 

If you could give me some advice, that would just be awesome.

Best wishes

[Darren Grant · Accepted solution]

It all depends on when you plan to deploy it.

If you are going to go live in the next couple of months then stay with 1.9.

2 still has some major show stopper issues and unless you can get by with the supplied payment gateways and shipping options you will be stuck as very few modules have been updated to Magento 2.

As much as Magento do not want to admit it, Magento 2 is still beta, with major issues like 3rd party payment modules unable to work with 2.0.2. To get anything close to a functioning system you have to use the development branch where fixes are constantly being added. I honestly think it will be at least 2.0.4 before we have something stable enough to consider deploying and perhaps 6 months before some of the essential extensions are developed and tested.

So my answer would be, deploy now with 1.9 or deploy in 6 months with 2.

[squeebo]

I'm also considering 1.9. 

What if I were to install 1.9 now and not do any major upgrades for a few years? Bad idea? 

I'm currently running a 5 year old version of another cart software because I've been avoiding the major upgrade. It's antiquated, and there are fewer and fewer addons available, and the software overall has lost its popularity. So I'll probably be really slow to upgrade again after this, but I expect in a few years my business will either be shut down or sold, so I'm not exactly thinking long term.

[teokolo]

Me and lot of developers are stuck: 1.9 or 2.0?

The main problem with 1.9 is: we don't know exactly when End Of Life will be, and if security patches will be made available.

I tried 2.0 (install didn't show any problem), but it seems not ready for a production website (language problems, few themes, few extensions).

In the other hand, I don't want to spend lot of time building a huge 1.9 e-commerce site now, migration process to 2.0 scares me a lot.

I'd like your opinion and advice!