Selecting the right front-end for your Magento or Adobe Commerce store is a pivotal decision with lasting impacts on development costs and future sales. The standout choice in the market is Hyvä, now encompassing Theme, Checkout and a whole community to support merchants. In this article, I, as a Front-End Developer, will take a look into why it's likely your best business option.
The Limitations of Default Magento Theme
By default, Magento offers two themes—Blank and Luma. However, these themes, created when front-end technology was less advanced, now present outdated and overly complex codebases. Their notorious page speed performance issues have become a widespread challenge, affecting many themes in the market that are based on them.
The PWA Conundrum
Progressive Web App (PWA) solutions, such as Magento PWA Studio, Vue Storefront, and Scandi PWA, have gained popularity. While these solutions offer benefits, they often demand more development time, resulting in higher costs and slower delivery. For businesses seeking an alternative, Hyvä emerges as a compelling choice.
Introducing Hyvä Theme
Released in 2020, Hyvä provides a fresh front end for Magento. It retains the Magento framework's core concepts while addressing the issues of an outdated, complex, and low-performing front end. Beyond its primary function as a front-end theme, Hyvä serves as a comprehensive toolset, an extension ecosystem, and boasts a supportive community.
Key Advantages of the Hyvä Theme
Exceptional Performance
Hyvä prioritises performance, scoring around 100/100 on Google PageSpeed by default. This stellar result significantly impacts e-commerce traffic, bounce rates, and overall user satisfaction.
Reduced Code Complexity
By eliminating third-party libraries like JQuery, RequireJS, and Knockout.js, Hyvä simplifies the codebase. Leveraging browser-native features and Alpine.js, it achieves a lightweight and modern approach.
Large Community of Contributors
Hyvä has gained rapid traction within the Magento community, with numerous partners and contributors continually enhancing its product and ecosystem.
Increased Speed of Development
The reduced complexity facilitates quicker implementation of changes and addition of new features. Leveraging the large community, developers can benefit from existing modules compatible with Hyvä.
Design Advancements
Hyvä UI, a recent addition, provides a set of components based on a well-defined design system. This accelerates the website development process, allowing for customization to align with brand needs.
Brand-New Checkout
Addressing one of the biggest challenges in Magento, Hyvä introduces a new checkout that prioritises performance and reduced complexity.
Future-Proof
As a commercial product with promises of continuous development and long-term support, Hyvä stands out as a reliable and future-proof choice.