Migrating from Magento to MedusaJS: The Enterprise Technical Guide

For enterprises running on Magento, the challenges of scaling, maintaining custom code, and optimizing performance can hold back growth. MedusaJS off ers a lightweight, API-fi rst alternative that unlocks flexibility, speed, and lower overhead.

In this guide, we’ll walk through why enterprises are making the switch, the technical differences between Magento and Medusa, and how to plan and execute a phased migration with minimal disruption.

Let's walk through some of the biggest differences between the two platforms and see how they stack up.

Modern Architecture and Flexibility

Magento is a monolithic platform (built in PHP) where frontend, backend, and extensions are tightly coupled. Customizing Magento often means dealing with complex XML configurations and overriding core code, which can introduce maintenance issues.

For example, adding a seemingly simple feature like a custom checkout step or gift-wrapping option in Magento can require extensive PHP/XML work and risk breaking things on upgrades. In contrast, MedusaJS has a lightweight, API-first architecture that is fully headless.

Its modular design allows you to replace or extend components without touching core logic. Medusa’s flexibility means you can compose your commerce stack with best-of-breed services and swap things out as needed, rather than being locked into a single rigid system.

Performance

For enterprise retailers, site performance is critical. MedusaJS delivers significant performance gains over Magento’s legacy stack. Medusa’s decoupled frontend allows you to
use modern frameworks (like Next.js) and techniques (SSR/SSG) to optimize page load times. For example, using Medusa with Next.js server-side rendering can significantly improve initial load speed and SEO.

Scalability and Maintenance

Scalability is a major consideration for growing DTC brands and retailers. MedusaJS’s headless, stateless architecture scales more easily in modern cloud environments. You can run multiple Medusa server instances behind a load balancer to handle high traffic, and scale your frontend independently as needed.

Because Medusa is modular, you can also scale individual services (for example, the database, search index, or cache) without scaling the entire platform. Magento can certainly scale to enterprise levels, but doing so often requires significant infrastructure (multiple web nodes with sticky sessions or Varnish caching, separate database servers, etc.) and careful tuning.

Magento’s heavy footprint means higher hosting costs and complexity as traffic grows. By contrast, Medusa’s lighter Node.js service can be containerized and deployed on modern orchestration platforms for efficient horizontal scaling.

Maintenance is also smoother with Medusa. Upgrading Magento, especially if you have many custom modules, can be a risky, time-consuming project (with potential regressions caused by core changes or extension incompatibilities). Medusa’s design encourages keeping customizations in isolated plugins or separate services. You avoid the “house of cards” effect often seen in Magento upgrades.

Moreover, Medusa is open-source and free with an active community, so you’re not tied to Adobe’s release cycle or licensing for enterprise features. Many features that are premium add-ons in Magento (or require the Commerce edition) come out-of-the-box in Medusa or via free plugins; e.g. advanced promotions, multi-currency, and so on.

Below are the key planning steps and best practices:

Assess Your Magento Implementation (Data and Customizations)

Start by auditing your current Magento setup in detail. This involves:

Catalog and Data Model Compatibility

Review how your product catalog, categories, variants, pricing, and customers are structured in Magento, and map these to Medusa’s data models. Medusa has its own schemas for products, variants, orders, customers, etc., which are more straightforward than Magento’s (Magento uses an EAV model for products with attribute sets, which doesn’t directly exist in Medusa).

Identify any custom product attributes or complex product types (e.g. Magento bundle or configurable products) that will need special handling. For example, Magento “configurable products” with multiple options will likely map to a product with multiple variants in Medusa.

Make sure Medusa’s model can accommodate all necessary data (it usually can, via built-in fi elds or using metadata for custom attributes). Early on, defi ne how each entity (products, SKUs, categories, customers, orders, discount codes, etc.) will translate into the Medusa schema.

Extension and Module Inventory

Magento installations often have numerous third-party modules and custom extensions providing extra features (from SEO tools to loyalty programs). List out all installed Magento modules and custom code. You can generate a module list via CLI: for example, running

php bin/magento module:status > modules_list.txt

will output all modules in your Magento instance. Using this list, evaluate each module’s functionality:

• Determine which features are native in Medusa (so you won’t need an equivalent extension). Medusa covers many commerce basics like product management, multi-currency, pricing rules, discounts, etc., out-of-the-box.
• For features not built into Medusa, check if an existing Medusa plugin or integration can provide that capability. Medusa has an ecosystem of official and community plugins (for payments, CMS, search, analytics, etc.).
• For truly custom or business-specific features that neither Medusa core nor a plugin covers, plan how to reimplement them in Medusa. This might involve writing a custom Medusa plugin or using Medusa’s APIs to integrate an external service. The good news is Medusa’s plugin system allows you to extend any part of the backend or admin with custom logic relatively easily. For instance, if you have a complex promotion rule module in Magento, you might recreate it as a Medusa plugin hooking into the order calculation fl ow. Prioritize which custom functions are critical to carry over and design solutions for them.

Data Volume and Quality

Consider the volume of data to migrate (number of SKUs, customers, orders, etc.) and its cleanliness. It’s also a chance to eliminate outdated or low-value data (for example, old customer records, or products that are no longer sold) so you start “clean” on Medusa.

Note:
It’s often helpful to create a mapping document that enumerates Magento entities and how each will be handled in Medusa (e.g., Magento customer entity -> Medusa customer, including 

addresses; Magento reward points -> integrate XYZ loyalty service via API). This becomes your blueprint.

Define a Migration Strategy and Timeline

With requirements understood, the next step is to choose a migration approach. For most enterprises, a phased migration strategy is highly recommended over a “big bang” cutover.

In a phased approach, you gradually transition pieces of functionality from Magento to Medusa in stages, rather than switching everything in one night. This greatly reduces risk and complexity. Key benefits of a phased replatforming include the ability to test and fi x issues in isolation, minimal downtime, and continuous business operation during the transition. By migrating one component at a time, you can validate that piece (e.g. product catalog) in Medusa while the rest of the system still runs on Magento. If something goes wrong, it’s easier to roll back a single component than a whole system.

Plan out the phases that make sense for your business. A typical plan (detailed in the next section) might be:

Phase 1: Build a new Medusa-based storefront (while Magento remains the backend)
Phase 2: Migrate product/catalog data to Medusa
Phase 3: Migrate cart & checkout (orders) to Medusa

Each phase should be treated as a mini-project with its own design, implementation, and QA. Determine clear exit criteria for each phase (e.g. “new product catalog on Medusa shows all items correctly and inventory syncs with ERP”) before moving on.

Also decide on timing: choose low-traffic periods for cutovers of critical pieces, and ensure business stakeholders are aligned on any necessary content freeze or downtime. For example, when you migrate the product catalog, you may enforce a freeze on adding new products in Magento to avoid divergence while data is copied. Similarly, a final order migration might require a short checkout downtime to ensure no orders are lost. All such events should be scheduled and communicated.

During planning, also outline a data synchronization strategy. In a phased migration, you’ll have a period where Magento and Medusa run in parallel for different functions. You must plan how data will stay consistent between them:

• For example, in Phase 1, Magento is still the source of truth for products and orders, but a new Medusa/Next.js frontend might be reading some data. You can use Magento’s REST APIs or GraphQL to fetch live data from Magento into the new frontend. If you are also sending some data to Medusa (in later phases), you might temporarily feed updates both ways (Magento to Medusa and vice versa) to keep systems in sync.
• you might implement synchronization scripts or utilize a Medusa migration plugin that periodically pulls data from Magento and pushes to Medusa. During Phase 2, for instance, you could run a one-time import of all products, then set up a job to sync any new or updated products from Magento to Medusa until Magento is fully retired.
• Plan for the final cutover data sync: when you switch completely to Medusa, you’ll need to migrate any delta data that changed on Magento since the last bulk migration. For instance, just before Phase 3 (moving checkout), you might import all orders placed on Magento up to that minute into Medusa, so that order history is preserved. Similarly, migrate any new customers or reviews that were added in Magento during the transition.

It’s better to set up Medusa development and staging environments early in the project. Stand up a Medusa instance (or a few) in a sandbox environment and start populating it with sample data. This will be used to develop and test migration scripts. Make sure you have a staging database for Medusa (e.g., PostgreSQL or MySQL, whichever you choose for Medusa) and that the team is familiar with deploying Medusa. Medusa provides a CLI to bootstrap a new project quickly, for example:

npx create-medusa-app@latest

This will create a new Medusa server project (and optionally a Next.js storefront if you choose) on your machine.. You can also initialize a Medusa project via the Medusa CLI (medusa new command) to include a seeded store for testing.

As part of setup, you’ll create an Admin user for the Medusa backend and explore the Medusa Admin dashboard to ensure you know how to manage products, orders, etc., in the new system.. Familiarize your ops/administrative staff with the Medusa admin UI early, so they can provide feedback on any critical gaps (for instance, Magento has some specific admin grids or reports you might need to replicate).

Finally, communicate and coordinate the migration plan with all stakeholders. The engineering team, product managers, operations, customer support, and leadership should all understand the phased plan, the timeline, and any expected impacts (like minor UI changes in Phase 1 or slight differences in workflows in the new system). Migration at this scale is as much about change management as it is about technology. With a solid plan in place, you can now proceed to execution.

With planning done, it’s time to implement the migration. We will outline a phased step-by-step execution that gradually moves your e-commerce backend, admin, and storefront from Magento to MedusaJS.

Each phase below corresponds to a portion of functionality being migrated, aligned with best practices to minimize risk. Throughout each phase, maintain rigorous testing and quality assurance before proceeding to the next stage.

Phase 1: Launch a New Headless Storefront (Decoupling the Frontend)

The first phase is all about decoupling your storefront (UI) from Magento’s integrated frontend. In Magento, the frontend (themes/templates) is tightly coupled with the backend. We’ll replace this with a new headless storefront (for example, a Next.js or Gatsby application) that initially still uses Magento’s backend via APIs.

Phase 1: Introduce a new headless storefront and CMS while Magento remains the backend. The new frontend (e.g., Next.js app) fetches data from Magento’s APIs.
Steps in Phase 1:

Develop the new Frontend

Choose a modern frontend framework such as Next.js, Gatsby, or Nuxt to build your storefront. Medusa provides starter templates for Next.js that you can use as a foundation (or you can build from scratch).. Design the frontend to consume data from an API rather than directly from a database.

In this phase, the API will be Magento’s. Magento 2 supports a REST API and a GraphQL API out-of-the-box. For example, your new product listing page in Next.js could call Magento’s REST endpoints (or GraphQL queries) to fetch products and categories.

This essentially treats Magento as a headless service. You might build a small middleware layer or utilize Next.js API routes to securely proxy calls to Magento’s API if needed, or call Magento APIs directly from the frontend (taking care of CORS and authentication).

Many enterprise teams opt to implement a BFF (Backend-For-Frontend)—a lightweight Node.js server that sits between the frontend and Magento—to aggregate and format data. This is optional but can help in mapping Magento’s API responses to a simpler format for the UI.

Replicate design and UX

Reimplement your storefront’s design on the new tech stack. Try to keep the user experience consistent with the old site initially, to avoid confusing customers during the transition.

You can, of course, take the opportunity to improve UX, but major changes might be better introduced gradually. Importantly, ensure global elements like header, footer, navigation, and product URL structure remain familiar or have proper redirects, so SEO and usability aren’t hurt.

Connect to Magento’s Data

Use Magento’s API to feed the necessary data. For instance, the product listing page will call an endpoint like /rest/V1/products (Magento’s REST) or a GraphQL query to retrieve products and categories. You will likely need an API authentication token to access Magento’s APIs.

Magento’s REST API can be accessed by generating an integration token, or as in the Medusa migration plugin, by programmatically obtaining an admin token. For example, the Medusa migration module uses a POST to Magento’s V1/integration/admin/token endpoint with admin credentials to get a token:

const response = await fetch(`${magentoBaseUrl}/rest/default/V1/integration/admin/token`, {
method: "POST",
headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
body: JSON.stringify({ username: MAGENTO_ADMIN_USER, password: MAGENTO_ADMIN_PASS })
});
const token = await response.text();
// Use this token in Authorization header for subsequent Magento API calls

Proxy live operations to Magento

In this phase, Magento still handles all commerce operations (cart, checkout, customer accounts). Your new frontend will simply redirect or proxy those actions. For example, when a user clicks “Add to Cart” or goes to checkout, you might hand off to Magento’s existing pages or send a request to Magento’s cart API.

It’s acceptable if the checkout flow temporarily takes users to Magento’s domain or uses Magento’s UI, as this will be addressed in later phases. The goal of Phase 1 is not to eliminate Magento, but to introduce the new frontend and CMS while Magento underpins it behind the scenes.

(For teams that cannot rebuild the entire frontend in one go, an alternative approach is to do a partial storefront migration. Using tools like Next.js Rewrite rules, you can incrementally replace certain Magento pages with new ones. For example, you could serve product detail pages via the new Next.js app, but keep checkout on Magento until later. This way, you flip portions of the UI to the new stack gradually. While this complicates routing, it offers a very controlled rollout. Many teams, however, would prefer to launch the whole new frontend at once as described above, for a cleaner architecture.)

Phase 2: Migrate Product Catalog, Inventory, and Pricing to Medusa

In Phase 2, the focus shifts to the backend. Here we migrate the core catalog data: products, categories, inventories, prices, from Magento’s database into Medusa. By the end of this phase, Medusa will become the source of truth for all product information, while Magento may still handle the shopping cart and orders until Phase 3.

Steps in Phase 2:

Set up Medusa Server and Modules

If you haven’t already, install and configure your Medusa backend service. This involves spinning up a Medusa server (Node.js application) connected to a database (Medusa supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc., with an ORM).

Medusa comes with a default product module, order module, etc. Make sure your Medusa instance is running and you can access the Medusa Admin panel. In the Admin, you might manually create a couple of sample products to see how data is structured, then delete them, just to get familiar.

Also configure any essential settings in Medusa (currencies, regions, etc.) to align with your business; for example, if your Magento store had multiple currencies or websites, configure Medusa’s regions and currency settings accordingly.

Data Export from Magento

Extract the product catalog data from Magento. There are a few approaches for this:

Use Magento’s REST API to fetch all products, categories, and related data (images, attributes, inventory levels, etc.). Magento’s API allows filtering and pagination to get data in batches.

Alternatively, do a direct database export from Magento’s MySQL. For example, run SQL queries or use Magento’s built-in export tool to get products to CSV. However, Magento’s data schema is quite complex (spread across many tables due to EAV), so using the API (which presents consolidated data) can simplify the process.

In either case, you will likely need to transform the data format to match Medusa. For instance, Magento’s product may have a separate price table, whereas in Medusa the price might be a fi eld or managed via price lists. Plan to capture product names, SKUs, descriptions, category relationships, images, variants/options (size, color, etc.), stock levels, and any custom attributes you identified during planning.

Data Import into Medusa

Insert the exported data into Medusa’s database using the Medusa APIs or programmatically. You have a few options:

• Use Medusa’s Admin REST API: Medusa exposes endpoints to create products, variants, etc. You could write scripts that read the Magento data and call Medusa’s /admin/products endpoints to create products one by one. This is straightforward but could be slow for very large catalogs unless you batch requests.
• Use a Medusa Script or Plugin: Because Medusa is a Node.js system, you can write a custom script (within the Medusa project or a separate Node script) that uses Medusa’s internal services or repository layer to insert data directly. For example, within a Medusa plugin context, you could use Medusa’s ProductService to create products in bulk. You essentially create a reusable migration tool: the plugin fetches products from Magento and then calls Medusa’s createProductsWorkflow to import them.. The benefit of doing this as a plugin is that you can rerun it or even schedule it (e.g., to periodically sync data during transition).
• CSV/JSON import via code: Another approach is to export data to a structured fi le (CSV/JSON) from Magento and then write a Node.js script using Medusa’s SDK or direct DB calls to import. This is custom but might be simpler for one-time use.

Verify and Adjust Data in Medusa

Once imported, use the Medusa Admin dashboard to spot-check the catalog. Do all products appear with correct titles, prices, variants, and images? Are categories properly assigned? This is where you may need to adjust some mappings.

For example, Magento product “attributes” that were used for filtering (color, brand, etc.) might be represented in Medusa as product tags or metadata. If so, you might convert Magento attributes to Medusa tags for fi ltering purposes. Likewise, customer groups or tier
pricing in Magento could map to Medusa’s customer groups and price lists (Medusa has a Price List feature for special pricing).

Point Frontend Product Calls to Medusa

After product data is in Medusa, switch your new frontend to use Medusa’s Store APIs for product and inventory data. Up to now, in Phase 1, the Next.js app was likely calling Magento’s API to list products. Now you will update those API calls to query the Medusa backend instead. Medusa provides a Store API (unauthenticated endpoints) for products, collections, etc.

For example, your product listing page might hit GET /store/products on Medusa (which returns a list of products in JSON). This cutover should be invisible to users: the data is the same conceptually, just coming from a diff erent backend. Because we still haven’t moved the cart/checkout, you may need to ensure product IDs or SKUs align so that when a user adds to cart (going to Magento), it still recognizes the product. If you maintain the exact same SKUs and identifi ers in Medusa as in Magento, you can cross-reference easily. You might keep a mapping of Magento product ID to Medusa product ID if needed just for the interim.

Phase 3: Migrate Cart, Checkout, and Order Processing to Medusa

Phase 3 tackles the transactional components: shopping cart, checkout, payments, and order management. This is usually the most complex part of the migration because it affects the core of your e-commerce operations and customer experience.

Steps in Phase 3:

Rebuild Cart & Checkout Functionality

Since your frontend is already decoupled, you will now integrate it with Medusa’s cart and order APIs instead of Magento’s. Medusa provides a Cart API and Order API to support typical e-commerce flows. For example:

1. When a user clicks “Add to Cart”, you will call POST /store/carts (to create a cart) and then POST /store/carts/{cart_id}/line-items to add a product line item. Medusa’s store API will handle the cart persistence (likely in Medusa’s DB).
2. The cart state (items, totals, etc.) can be retrieved via GET /store/carts/{cart_id} and displayed to the user.
3. For checkout, Medusa supports typical checkout flows: you’ll collect shipping address, select shipping method, select payment method, etc., and update the cart via API calls (e.g., POST /store/carts/{id}/shipping-method, POST /store/carts/{id}/payment-session).
4. Finally, placing an order is usually done by completing the payment session which in turn creates an Order in Medusa (this is often POST /store/carts/{id}/complete).

Essentially, you need to replicate in the new frontend all the steps that Magento’s checkout used to provide. If you use a Magento one-page checkout or multiple steps, design a corresponding fl ow in the new frontend calling Medusa. The heavy-lifting of order creation, tax calculation, etc., can be done by Medusa if configured properly.

Configure Payment Providers in Medusa

Set up payment processing within Medusa to replace Magento’s payment integrations. Medusa has a plugin-based system for payments, with support for providers like Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, etc. If you were using, say, Authorize.net or Stripe in Magento, you can install the Medusa plugin for the same (or use a new provider if desired).

Please make sure that your Medusa instance is confi gured with API keys for the payment gateway and that the frontend integrates the payment provider’s UI or SDK appropriately (for example, Stripe Elements on the frontend and the @medusajs/stripe plugin on backend).

Set up Shipping and Tax in Medusa

Medusa provides a default shipping option management and integrates with shipping carriers via plugins (if needed). For taxes, Medusa can handle simple tax rules or integrate with tax services. Configure any necessary fulfillment providers (like if using Shippo, Shipstation, etc.) and tax rates or services (like TaxJar) so that the Medusa order fl ow computes totals correctly.

Migrate or Sync Customer Accounts (if required for checkout)

Depending on how you want to handle customer logins, you might at this point migrate customer accounts to Medusa. Medusa has its own customer management and authentication.

However, if you want logged-in customers to be able to see their profile or use saved addresses during checkout on the new system, you’ll need to move customer data now. Migrating customer accounts means importing users’ basic info and hashed passwords.

Medusa uses bcrypt for hashing passwords by default; Magento (depending on version) might use different hash algorithms (MD5 with salt in M1, SHA-256 in M2). One strategy is to migrate all users with a flag requiring a password reset (simplest, but impacts user experience), or attempt to import password hashes and adjust Medusa’s authentication to accept Magento’s hash format (advanced).

Order Management and Fulfillment

Recreate any order processing workflows in Medusa. For example, if Magento was integrated to an ERP or OMS (Order Management System) for fulfillment, now Medusa must integrate with those systems. Medusa can trigger webhooks or you can use its event system to notify external systems of new orders.

If your team uses an admin interface to manage orders (e.g., print packing slips, update order status), the Medusa Admin or a connected OMS should be used. The Medusa Admin dashboard allows viewing and updating orders, creating fulfillments, etc., similar to Magento admin.

You might need to train the operations team to use Medusa’s admin for processing orders (creating shipments, marking orders as shipped, etc.). If any custom post-order logic existed (like custom fraud checks, or split fulfillment logic), implement that either via Medusa’s plugins or an external microservice triggered by Medusa’s order events.

Cutover Cart/Checkout on Frontend

Once Medusa’s checkout is fully implemented and tested in a staging environment, you will switch the production frontend to use it. This is a big milestone, effectively, Magento is being removed from the live customer path.

Ensure to coordinate a deployment when the site is quiet. It can be wise to disable the ability to place orders on Magento shortly before the switch (for instance, put Magento in maintenance mode for checkout) to avoid any orders being placed on Magento at the same time.

When you deploy the new frontend that connects to Medusa for cart/checkout, run through a suite of test orders (ideally in a staging environment or with test payment modes on production just before enabling real payments).

Data Migration (Orders)

You may want to migrate historical order data from Magento into Medusa, for continuity in order history. This can be done via script or gradually. However, migrating thousands of old orders might not be strictly necessary for operations; some teams keep Magento read-only for a time for reference or build an archive.

If you do import past orders, you might insert them as Medusa orders via the Admin API or directly in DB. The critical part in Phase 3 is to ensure any ongoing orders (like open carts or pending orders) are either transferred or completed. For example, you might cut off new cart creation on Magento a few hours before, but allow any user who was in checkout to finish (or provide a clear notice to refresh and start a new cart on the new system).

Now that your store is on MedusaJS, leverage the benefits of the new architecture and follow best practices to get the most out of it. Here are some recommended architecture patterns and practices post-migration for an enterprise-scale Medusa setup:

Composable, Microservices-Friendly Architecture

With Medusa as the core commerce service, your overall e-commerce platform is now “composable.” This means you can plug in and replace components at will. Continue to embrace this modular approach.

For example, if you want to add a new capability like AI-driven recommendations, you can integrate a specialized microservice for that via Medusa’s APIs or events, without monolithic constraints. Each piece of the system (CMS, search, payments, etc.) can scale independently and be updated on its own schedule.

Scalability and Cloud Deployment

Deploy Medusa in a cloud-native way to achieve maximal scalability and reliability. Containerize the Medusa server (Docker) and use Kubernetes or similar to manage scaling. Because Medusa is stateless (except the database), you can run multiple instances for load balancing.

Scale the database vertically or use read replicas as needed; e.g., a managed PostgreSQL service that can handle enterprise load. Use auto-scaling for your frontend as well (if using Next.js, consider serverless deployment for dynamic functions and a CDN for static pre-rendered pages).

Monitor resource usage and performance; one benefit of Medusa’s headless setup is you can put a caching layer or CDN in front of certain API calls if needed (though be careful to cache only safe GET requests like product browsing, not cart actions).

Maintain a Clean Extension Layer

As you add features to your commerce platform, use Medusa’s extension points (plugins, modules, and integrations) rather than modifying core code. This keeps the core stable and upgradable. Medusa’s plugin system supports adding custom routes, middleware, or overriding core service logic in a contained manner.

If an enterprise feature is missing, consider building a plugin and possibly contributing it back to the Medusa community. This way, your platform remains maintainable. For example, if down the road you need a complex promotion engine beyond what Medusa offers, build it as a separate service or plugin that interfaces with orders, rather than forking the Medusa core.

Cost and Maintenance Considerations

Without Magento’s license or heavy hosting requirements, you may fi nd cost savings. However, budget for the new components (hosting for Medusa, any new SaaS services like CMS or search). Keep track of total cost of ownership.

Over time, Medusa’s lower resource footprint can be a win; for example, a Node service might use less memory and CPU under load than Magento did. If you switched from Magento Commerce (paid) to Medusa (free OSS), you’ve eliminated license fees as well.

By approaching the process in phases—starting with the storefront, then moving catalog data, and finally checkout and orders—you minimize risk while steadily unlocking the benefits of a headless, modular architecture.

The result is a faster, more scalable platform that adapts to your business needs instead of limiting them. With MedusaJS in place, your enterprise is better equipped for future growth, innovation, and long-term effi ciency.