Updated September 2026 to reflect FastMagento 2.10 and the new FastMagento Checkout module.
Magento can be fast. Out of the box, on real catalogs, it usually is not — and the reason is not the hardware. It is how Magento reads product data. I built FastMagento to change that, and this is the overview: what it does, how it works, what it has measured, and what it does not do yet.
Why Magento 2 Is Slow Out of the Box
Magento stores products in an EAV (entity-attribute-value) model: one product’s data is spread across many tables, split by attribute type and store view. Rendering a page means loading products through that model, plus prices, catalog rules, stock, categories, URLs, and reviews. On an uncached request, that routinely adds up to hundreds of SQL queries — and on a large catalog, thousands.
A full-page cache such as Varnish hides this for anonymous visitors on popular pages. It does nothing for search results, uncommon filter combinations, logged-in and B2B shoppers, carts, or checkout — the requests from shoppers most likely to buy. I explain that gap in detail in Why Your Magento Store Is Still Slow After Varnish.
What the FastMagento Extension Does
FastMagento keeps MySQL as the source of truth and serves the storefront’s product reads from OpenSearch, the search engine Magento 2.4 already requires.
Product pages without EAV
Product loads return a lightweight product object whose data comes straight from an OpenSearch document, so product pages skip the multi-table EAV load. Product and link collections, reviews, stock, and pricing — tier prices, special prices, catalog rules, and customer-group pricing — are read from the index too.
Search, autocomplete, and live filters
Search results are served from the index, with autocomplete and an instant search results page with live filtering. Optional AI-assisted search uses Claude to generate synonyms and per-product keywords.
Category tree, navigation, and URLs
The category tree, navigation menus, and URL routing are served from the index. Category product grids are still rendered from MySQL today — more on that below.
Fast Checkout
Built in and on by default, Fast Checkout serves the product, price, and stock reads that cart and checkout totals need from OpenSearch instead of reloading them from EAV on every recalculation. For the checkout page itself, the separate FastMagento Checkout module rebuilds the frontend; I compare both with the alternatives in FastMagento Checkout vs Hyvä Checkout, One-Step Checkouts and Bolt.
Admin and operations tools
A paginated manager for attributes with 50,000+ options, additional database indexes for EAV tables, an Extension Efficiency Monitor that shows which third-party modules cost you the most, and a fastmagento:doctor command for diagnosing setup problems.
Is FastMagento Safe for Production?
- Indexes stay in sync through Magento’s own indexer framework, in bulk batches.
- Stock changes are written to the index after the response has been sent, so shoppers never wait on them.
- If a product is missing from the index, it is loaded normally once and then indexed.
- If OpenSearch is unavailable, Magento falls back to its normal database loading.
- It works underneath Varnish or any full-page cache rather than replacing it.
FastMagento Benchmarks at 513,000 Products
From the FastMagento README: a 513,000-product stress catalog with 4,187 configurables and a 50,000-option attribute, real-world extensions active, cold renders (full-page cache miss), median of three runs, module disabled versus enabled.
| Request (cache miss) | Stock Magento | With FastMagento | SQL queries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home page | 2,911 ms | 775 ms | 10,090 → 80 |
| Search results | 631 ms | 338 ms | 220 → 23 |
| Configurable product (660 variants) | 1,371 ms | 827 ms | 388 → 231 |
| Simple product | 555 ms | 480 ms | 413 → 256 |
| Cart totals (10 items) | 1,485 ms | 1,009 ms | 1,210 → 265 |
| Checkout totals | 1,510 ms | 1,110 ms | 1,250 → 295 |
| Category page | 543 ms | 622 ms | 246 → 131 |
On the same catalog, a full reindex dropped from about 2.6 hours to about 50 minutes, and the admin page for the 50,000-option attribute — which hung on stock Magento — opens instantly. With Fast Checkout, a warm checkout render with ten configurable products went from 3.34 seconds to 0.41 seconds on my test storefront.
FastMagento Limitations
- Category product grids are still served from MySQL. Category pages run far fewer queries, but on the stress catalog they were not faster in wall-clock time.
- Only the default store view is indexed.
- Adobe Commerce category permissions and B2B shared catalogs are not yet applied.
- Grouped and bundle products need more edge-case testing.
If your traffic is mostly category browsing across multiple store views, weigh those before installing. Everything above is documented in the README.
FastMagento Compatibility: Hyvä, Luma, Breeze and Adobe Commerce
Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce 2.4.x (2.4.6+ recommended), PHP 8.1 or newer, and OpenSearch 1.x or 2.x. Listing, product pages with swatches, add-to-cart, and checkout have been tested on Hyvä 1.5.2, Luma, and Breeze Blank 2.10. For how FastMagento fits with frontend themes, see Hyvä, Breeze, Edge Delivery Services and FastMagento; for how it compares with search tools, see FastMagento vs ElasticSuite, Adobe Live Search, Algolia and Klevu; and for the wider 2026 platform picture, see Magento Performance in 2026.
How to Install FastMagento
FastMagento is open source under the OSL-3.0 and AFL-3.0 licenses. Install it with composer require parkktech/fastmagento, build its indexers, and test on staging with your own catalog and extensions. The code is at github.com/parkktech/FastMagento.
FastMagento
Free, open-source serving layer: product pages, search, cart and checkout from OpenSearch instead of EAV.
composer require parkktech/fastmagentoFastMagento Checkout
Free, open-source checkout that paints instantly and keeps your existing payment methods.
composer require parkktech/fastmagento-checkoutFrequently Asked Questions
What is FastMagento?
FastMagento is an open-source Magento 2 extension that serves storefront product reads from OpenSearch instead of Magento’s EAV database tables, cutting SQL queries and response times on uncached pages such as search, product pages, cart, and checkout.
Does FastMagento speed up category pages?
Partly. It serves the category tree, navigation, and URL routing from OpenSearch and cuts category-page SQL queries roughly in half, but category product grids are still rendered from MySQL, so category pages are not yet faster in wall-clock time.
Which Magento versions does FastMagento support?
Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce 2.4.x, with 2.4.6 or newer recommended, on PHP 8.1 or newer and OpenSearch 1.x or 2.x.
Is FastMagento safe to run in production?
It is designed to fail safe: products missing from the index are loaded normally, and if OpenSearch is unavailable Magento falls back to its standard database loading. As with any extension, test it on staging with your catalog, extensions, and a real test order first.
Have a Magento store that is too slow?
Bring me the store three agencies could not make fast. The first conversation is free, and I will tell you honestly where your time is going.