DEV Community: Viktor Durnev

A Practical Look at Adobe Commerce’s New Development Model

Viktor Durnev — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 14:19:42 +0000

Adobe Commerce is entering a new era - the platform is becoming faster, more modular, and easier to extend – but this transition also changes the way we, as engineers and architects, work.

This isn’t about just faster deployments or nicer APIs. It’s about making Adobe Commerce a viable, modern, and scalable platform in a world where time-to-market and developer efficiency matter more than ever.

The Cost of Complexity

Traditional Adobe Commerce development tightly couples business logic with platform internals. Customizations share infrastructure and codebase with the core system, which means every change must conform to the same strict platform development standards - abstraction (Dependency Injections), strict extending interfaces, XML coding.

This level of rigor is reasonable for platform maintainers. But for everyday solution builders, it creates friction:

Minor features take too long to implement
Core upgrades become a nightmare of dependency and compatibility
Integrations (like ERP) turn into full-blown projects just to set up queues, schedulers, and cron jobs before the actual logic even begins

The result? Slower delivery and higher budgets - in today’s market, that’s no longer competitive.

The Architecture Behind the Shift

Adobe’s transition to a service-first model, led by App Builder, advanced APIs, and an event-driven development (EDD) environment – changed the game.

Instead of embedding code inside the core platform, developers now build external applications that respond to business events via asynchronous Adobe I/O triggers or synchronous webhooks. This decouples custom logic from Magento’s internals - freeing teams from the strict platform development standards.

It’s not just a technical shift - it’s architectural freedom.

These apps:

Run independently from Adobe Commerce, reducing risk, improving performance, and simplifying maintenance
Skip the usual structural overhead and get straight to logic
Rely on a consistent API layer, so both internal tools and third-party systems communicate the same way
Use a Node.js development environment, making full-stack development more accessible and scalable
Offload custom workloads to separate infrastructure, allowing the core platform to focus on commerce operations

On one project, we used App Builder to connect Narvar with our ERP – without ever touching the core platform.

On another, we rapidly built a proof-of-concept for a new payment gateway - validating the integration approach early, without the overhead typical in traditional Magento development. This kind of architectural freedom lets teams de-risk delivery by testing/PoC critical flows before committing to full implementation.

This model doesn’t just reduce friction. it unlocks delivery velocity, staffing flexibility, and smarter allocation of engineering effort.

Worth a Closer Look

I was genuinely excited to try App Builder and that was part of the problem. Adobe doesn’t offer public access: only Adobe Commerce Cloud clients can use it. That seriously slows down adoption and engineering community growth. I truly hope Adobe reconsiders this approach and makes the tooling more accessible in the near future.

When we finally got access, what impressed me most was the simplicity of implementation and the flexibility of the environment. And more importantly, AI became a much more effective coding assistant – unlike the legacy model where structural complexity limits its value.

If you're just starting, I’d recommend picking a small use case. For example, we extended backorder logic by adding a backorder threshold:

Added a new product attribute
Subscribed to the After Order Place event
Queried product data using GraphQL
Used the REST API to set items to out-of-stock when the threshold was reached

As you can see, it's easy to start small and even that gives you a clear understanding of the new model. Continuing with the legacy architecture will only increase the time and cost of a future SaaS migration.

Right now, I don’t see any major architectural bottlenecks that would prevent adopting this approach. It’s simple and, as a consequence, highly reliable.

From Exploration to Readiness

If you're running on Adobe Commerce Cloud, I strongly recommend exploring App Builder. Start small, get familiar – especially if you're planning any future integrations.

Even limited adoption now can significantly reduce the cost and complexity of your future SaaS migration.

The earlier you start, the easier it gets.

source LinkedIn

Summary:

Platform: Adobe Commerce (Magento 2)
Focus: Transition to SaaS (EDS, App Builder, Catalog Service, Adobe I/O, EDD, Events)
Use Cases: Faster development, reduced TCO, scalable architecture
Related terms: API-first, headless, serverless, Edge Delivery Services, EDD, Commerce as a Service

tags: AdobeCommerce, SaaS, microservices, Edge Delivery Services, EDS, Magento, App Builder, Adobe Commerce As Service, Adobe I/O

Adobe Commerce Enters a New Era

Viktor Durnev — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 13:58:54 +0000

Over the last several years, Adobe has strategically invested in its eCommerce platform, consistently delivering brand-new and enhanced existing business tools to propel business growth.

Unlike a disruptive revolution, Adobe has opted for a step-by-step evolution, methodically combining proven enterprise products into a comprehensive suite of commerce solutions. The expansion of business services within Adobe Experience Cloud has been a steady process since 2017. Adobe Commerce, with its strong enterprise background, has become a central pillar in this gradual evolution, ultimately seeing Adobe Experience Cloud transform from a collection of individual products into a unified ecosystem.

The introduction of Adobe App Builder in 2021 and Edge Delivery Services (EDS) in 2024 was an important step, acting as a strong signal for the future evolution of Adobe Commerce. These provided essential building blocks for a composable and extensible architecture.

Now, with Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, this transformation reaches its next level.

The Big Shift: Commerce as a Service

With the upcoming release, Adobe Commerce moves away from its open-source code access roots. While open-source once offered flexibility, it also came with high maintenance costs and complex upgrade cycles, placing a burden on businesses. With Adobe’s shift to an API-first model, platform support is now fully managed by Adobe.

Why is this important?

Lower TCO: Businesses no longer need to allocate resources for platform support, allowing them to redirect efforts toward strategic initiatives.
Instant Security Updates: Security updates are seamlessly deployed by Adobe as soon as they become available, ensuring businesses always operate on a secure and reliable platform.
Versionless: Continuous updates provide businesses with immediate access to new features as soon as Adobe releases them, ensuring they always benefit from the latest innovations.
Performance boost: Controlled API utilization enhances system efficiency and scalability.

But What About Customization?

Custom features in Adobe Commerce no longer share the same codebase with the platform. Instead, flexibility is now provided through an API-first approach, serverless extensions, and an app-driven ecosystem. Shopify has already demonstrated that an app-based approach ensures businesses have the flexibility to satisfy all their needs while significantly reducing development costs. Adobe took this to the next level by launching App Builder, a serverless development platform that enables custom features without infrastructure headaches.

Key benefits:

Universal Layer: App can be utilized for a platform extension or as independent middleware, offering secure endpoints that allow any system, not just Adobe Commerce, to send events for processing.
Reliable & Predictable API: Adobe Commerce API remains consistent over time, ensuring reliability and long-term compatibility while offering GraphQL flexibility.
Serverless Solution: Eliminates infrastructure costs and self-hosting challenges, with Adobe App Builder enabling seamless, event-driven extensions for Adobe Commerce.
Unified Engineering: By leveraging JavaScript at its core, this solution ensures easier access to skilled developers and enhances cross-platform agility, eliminating rigid technology lock-ins like PHP.
Extensibility Toolkit: A robust set of development tools, including API gateway, UI SDKs, webhooks, event hub, and more. Low-code solutions and marketplace apps further accelerate deployment, enabling faster time-to-market.

Performance Meets Scalability
A fast storefront is no longer optional - it’s a competitive necessity. EDS (Edge Delivery Services) addresses this challenge, delivering unmatched performance and simplified development with a JavaScript framework-agnostic approach. However, in enterprise commerce speed alone isn’t enough and that’s where Adobe Experience Cloud plays a crucial role.

The Power of the Adobe Experience Cloud Ecosystem
A great website is a starting point, but in today's demanding eCommerce landscape, businesses need more. A robust ecosystem of tools is essential for effective growth. Industry leaders like Salesforce have long understood this, providing comprehensive solutions like CDP/CRM, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud to enable personalized, customer-centric sales strategies. Understanding the increasing need for such capabilities among businesses, Adobe began developing its own connected suite of business solutions within the Adobe Experience Cloud.

Here are some of the key products within Adobe Experience Cloud:

Adobe Analytics for deep data insights and performance tracking
Adobe Real-Time CDP for unified customer intelligence and segmentation
Adobe Journey Optimizer for orchestrating personalized customer journeys
Adobe Target for AI-driven A/B testing and experience personalization
Adobe Campaign for cross-channel marketing automation
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) for enterprise content management and digital experiences
Adobe Workfront for marketing workflow automation and project management
Adobe Marketo Engage for B2B and B2C lead nurturing and automated marketing
Adobe Advertising Cloud for AI-driven advertising automation across search, display, video, and connected TV

click to zoom

This is more than just a technological upgrade - it's a strategic move that positions Adobe as a global leader in enterprise commerce and unlocks incredible innovation potential. Businesses benefit from a modern, low-maintenance platform brimming with a powerful commerce ecosystem, while system integrators receive a cutting-edge foundation for building composable, MACH-inspired solutions that lead to highly scalable and agile storefronts.

Exciting times ahead 🚀

source LinkedIn