Configuration best practices

Magento 2 provides many settings and tools that you can use to improve response time on the pages as well as provide higher throughput.

Cron Jobs

All asynchronous operations in Magento Open Source are performed using the Linux cron command. See Configure and run cron to configure it correctly.

Indexers

An indexer can run in either Update on Save or Update on Schedule mode. The Update on Save mode immediately indexes whenever your catalog or other data changes. This mode assumes a low intensity of update and browsing operations in your store. It can lead to significant delays and data unavailability during high loads. Magento recommends using Update on Schedule mode in production, because it stores information about data updates and performs indexation by portions in the background through a specific cron job. You can change the mode of each Magento indexer separately on the System > Index Management configuration page.

Caches

When you launch your store in production, activate all the caches from the System > Cache Management page. We highly recommend using Varnish, as it is an efficient production page cache solution.

Asynchronous email notifications

Enabling the “Asynchronous email notifications” setting moves processes that handle checkout and order processing email notifications to the background. To enable this feature, go to Stores > Configuration > Sales > Sales Emails > General Settings > Asynchronous Sending. See Sales Emails in the Magento Open Source User Guide for more information.

Asynchronous order data processing

There can be times when intensive sales on a storefront occur at the same time that Magento is performing intensive order processing. You can configure Magento to distinguish these two traffic patterns on the database level to avoid conflicts between read and write operations in the corresponding tables. You can store and index order data asynchronously. Orders are placed in temporary storage and moved in bulk to the Order Management grid without any collisions. You can activate this option from Stores > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Grid Settings > Asynchronous indexing. See Scheduled Grid Updates in the Magento Open Source User Guide for more information.

Deferred stock update

In times of intensive sales, Magento can defer stock updates related to orders. This minimizes the number of operations and speeds up the order placement process. However, this option is risky and can only be used when Backorders are activated in the store, because this option can lead to negative stock quantities. This option can bring significant performance improvement on Checkout flows for stores that can easily re-fill their stock on demand. To activate deferred stock updates, go to Stores > Configuration > Catalog > Inventory > Product Stock Options > Use Deferred Stock Update. See Managing Inventory in the Magento CommerceUser Guide for more information.

Client side optimization settings

To improve the storefront responsiveness of your Magento instance, go to the Admin in Default or Developer mode and change the following settings:

Stores -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Developer

Settings Group	Setting	Value
Grid Settings	Asynchronous indexing	Enable
CSS Settings	Minify CSS Files	Yes
Javascript Settings	Minify JavaScript Files	Yes
Javascript Settings	Enable JavaScript Bundling	Yes
Template Settings	Minify HTML	Yes

When you activate the Enable Javascript Bundling option, you allow Magento to merge all JS resources into one or a set of bundles that are loaded in storefront pages. Bundling JS results in fewer requests to the server, which improves page performance. It also helps the browser cache JS resources on the first call and reuse it for all further browsing. This option also brings lazy evaluation, as all JS is loaded as text. It initiates analysis and evaluation of code only after specific actions are triggered on the page. However, this setting is not recommended for stores where the first page load time is extremely critical, because all JS content will will be loaded on the first call.