Adobe Commerce 2.4.3 Released: Live Search and 370+ Fixes

August 2021 delivered one of the most feature-rich Adobe Commerce updates to date: version 2.4.3. With over 370 bug fixes, critical security enhancements and three major feature launches, this release signalled Adobe's commitment to making the platform faster, more secure and easier to build upon.

Live Search: Powered by Elasticsearch, Built for Conversion

The star of 2.4.3 is Live Search, a new SaaS search service that replaces the traditional MySQL-based search engine. Live Search leverages Elasticsearch under the hood to deliver real-time, relevance-ranked product results with a focus on conversion and merchandising control.

For merchants, this means:

• Instant typo tolerance: Fuzzy matching and auto-correct help customers find products even with misspellings.
• Category and attribute filtering: Faceted search reduces time-to-purchase by letting shoppers narrow results by colour, size, price and custom attributes.
• Search analytics dashboard: Merchants gain visibility into what customers are searching for, enabling data-driven decisions on product visibility and inventory.
• Merchandising via rules engine: Promote best-sellers during peak seasons or boost slower-moving inventory—all without code changes.

Live Search is available as an optional SaaS add-on, separate from the core 2.4.3 release. This separation is deliberate: merchants can adopt it when ready, and teams that prefer self-hosted search can continue with native Elasticsearch integration or remain on MySQL.

Web API Rate Limiting: Protecting Infrastructure at Scale

As merchants increasingly decouple storefronts and build headless architectures, the risk of unintended (or malicious) API abuse grows. Adobe Commerce 2.4.3 introduces configurable rate limiting for REST and GraphQL APIs, protecting infrastructure from:

• Runaway integrations that spam endpoints without backoff logic.
• Web scraping and product data extraction.
• Denial-of-service attempts from a single IP or customer account.

Rate limits are configured per endpoint and user type (guest, customer, admin), giving merchants granular control. The feature ships with sensible defaults but expects teams to tune limits based on their traffic profile and integrations. For high-volume API consumers (PIM syncs, order imports, etc.), rate limits are not a blocker—they enforce the contract that APIs should be called responsibly.

PayPal Pay Later: Expanding Payment Options

Offering flexible payment options increases conversion, especially in the US market. Adobe Commerce 2.4.3 integrates PayPal Pay Later as a native payment method, allowing customers to split purchases into interest-free instalments.

The benefit for merchants is clear: higher average order values and fewer abandoned carts caused by payment friction. From a compliance standpoint, PayPal handles all regulatory and creditworthiness checks, so merchants reduce risk.

Security and Stability: 370+ Fixes

Behind the headline features, 2.4.3 addressed a large backlog of issues across the stack:

• Elasticsearch security configuration improvements.
• Fixes to inventory sync and stock management under high load.
• Improvements to asynchronous order processing and queue handling.
• Database query optimisation for large catalogues.
• Hundreds of small UX fixes across the admin panel.

A release of this scale is not seamless. Common upgrade gotchas include:

• Elasticsearch setup: If running self-hosted search, plan the Elasticsearch infrastructure upgrade early.
• Extension compatibility: Third-party modules may not declare 2.4.3 compatibility immediately; test in staging before production.
• Custom search implementations: If your store has custom search logic, validate that it coexists with the new engine or that you're ready to migrate to Live Search.

Why This Matters for Merchants

Adobe Commerce 2.4.3 is a mature, feature-complete release. It moves the needle on three fronts: customer experience (Live Search), platform resilience (API rate limiting) and payment choice (PayPal integration). For merchants already on 2.4.x, this is a straightforward, value-add upgrade. For teams on 2.3, this is a good candidate to justify the effort of a major-version migration.

The lesson: keep current with minor versions. Each release brings security, performance and feature gains that compound over time.