Things to Consider before Selecting a Third Party Magento 2 Extension
One of the most important factors when selecting an ecommerce platform is the numerous compatible extensions that can be added for some extra benefits. Magento ecommerce comes with rich features and has a huge community that comes up with regular extensions and modules that can be easily integrated into your site to enrich the customer shopping experience.
No matter how robust the platform is, it should be capable of easily integrating the third party extensions. However, not every plugin is just the same as they may bring different types of complexity. You can also see their installation methods, functionalities and regular maintenance requirements.
Where can You Find Magento 2 Extensions?
The most popular marketplace of extensions is the Magento Marketplace and this is where you can easily find both the extensions and themes for your online store. Besides this, the marketplace also comes with a simple installation process that enables the users to activate the purchase extension within no time. There are numerous categories in the Magento 2 marketplace and based on the categories that include the customer support, marketing tools, advanced payment modules, optimization tools, reporting tools and etc. there are also different means to sort the available options and you can see that this is where you can find the premium priced extensions together with some free of charge options. Such Magento 2 extensions are often an excellent means to try new extensions and see and add some interesting features to your online store.
Things that You Need to Consider while Choosing Your Magento 2 Third Party Extension:
Magento Version:
This is really straight forward, and you can check the vendor description and offer details about the Magento version compatibility. You should select an extension that is compatible with the Magento installation. There are various cases where the Community compatible extension work in the Enterprise versions too and it is adviced that you choose the extensions wisely and be aware of the differences between the Magento C.E and E.E features so that there are no errors of bugs in it.
Also Read: How Two Factor Authentication in Magento Help to Boost Security
Code Quality and Style:
The first components that you need to be concerned when checking the codes of Magento 2 development extension and so conducting a code review process which is prior to any 3rd party Magento extension integration. The script performs a two component analysis and it is important to identify the common coding problems like:
- Coding style violations
- Direct SQL usage
- Cyclomatic complexity over limits
- Direct object instantiation
- Inefficient methods usage on large data sets
Maintainability:
Magento 2 extensions should also offer the foundation for an easy maintenance in terms of error prevention, isolation and also facile debug possibility. One condition to reach maintainability is creating a good documentation. This is a subjective topic as there is a self-documenting code and the extensions are small enough to be understood only by proper naming and code readability, but the best practice is to follow a technical documentation process and a fully documented code for all of them.
Security:
Before selecting the best Magento 2 third party extension, you should always check the usage of un-scrutinized data coming from different inputs. Improper validation introduces the vulnerabilities that include SQL injection, cross site scripting, local and remote file inclusions and path traversals, PHP injection, OS command injection and cross site request forgery.
Also Read: The Growing Magento Ecommerce Market in India and the Reasons Behind It