More flexibility for storytelling: With advanced CMS like Sanity, editors get a familiar page-building experience with more opportunity for on-brand customisation, including A/B testing, content scheduling, personalisation, and internationalisation.
Faster load times: Skyrocket conversions with speeds that are unachievable on traditional Shopify. Highlights include background page preloading, and truly global distribution.
Migrate to headless without leaving Shopify: Hydrogen offers all the advantages of headless within the Shopify ecosystem. And Oxygen offers all the benefits of a modern and fast hosting architecture without adding external providers and extra cost.
Complex use cases: Hydrogen lets you build anything that’s possible on the web. Dynamic product configurators, complex user journeys, live shopping.
Specific technical requirements: Technical limitations in current setup, or specific SEO and/or page speed requirements, Internationalisation, A/B testing, Personalisation.
Ben Sehl
Product Lead at Shopify
Hydrogen is Shopify’s native solution for building headless storefronts, offering a standardized and simplified approach to headless commerce. Unlike traditional headless setups that might involve more complexity and risks due to their open nature, Hydrogen provides a solid foundation with essential features and components pre-built by Shopify.
This setup ensures you retain the flexibility of a headless architecture but start with a robust baseline. While using Hydrogen, you have the option to customize, extend, or completely replace components with custom implementation as needed.
Think of Hydrogen as the Dawn theme for headless Shopify, designed to streamline the process of creating a headless storefront while maintaining the option for customization and expansion.
Not all Shopify apps are guaranteed to work with Hydrogen, but many will. Key apps involved in Shopify’s core business processes, such as subscriptions and pre-orders, are expected to function as usual, allowing for custom layout creation without much trouble. This might even require less effort than modifying pre-built widgets.
Major apps typically offer APIs for easy integration with Hydrogen, giving you flexibility in how these integrations are set up.
Integration is still often possible for apps without an API. Tools like Klaviyo Forms or Popups can be used on Hydrogen storefronts.
App compatibility with Hydrogen can’t be answered with a simple yes or no; it varies by app and requires a case-by-case assessment. Consider booking our free consultation to evaluate your current setup for a clearer picture of how your apps will work with Hydrogen.
No, you don’t need an external hosting provider for Hydrogen. Shopify has introduced Oxygen as a built-in hosting solution specifically designed for Hydrogen storefronts. This setup is meant to streamline the process, offering a seamless integration within Shopify Plus.
However, Shopify’s ecosystem is flexible, and if you prefer to host your Hydrogen storefront outside of Shopify, that option remains open to you. Oxygen serves as a convenient and optimized choice, but it’s not the only path available for those looking to deploy Hydrogen storefronts
Shopify Oxygen is a hosting platform specifically designed for Hydrogen storefronts. It allows you to host these storefronts directly on Shopify Plus, making the process more seamless and integrated compared to traditional headless setups that might require third-party hosting services.
It also reduces costs related to hosting as Oxygen is included in every plan besides Starter
Yes, you can migrate just a portion of your Shopify store to Hydrogen. Shopify offers a flexible approach to adopting Hydrogen, making it an ideal solution for larger storefronts looking to transition quickly or those wishing to migrate only essential sections of their site
Next.js is another well-recognized framework for building headless web applications and storefronts, offering a more general approach compared to Shopify’s Hydrogen. This generality allows Next.js to be versatile, fitting a wide range of projects. However, this versatility can introduce additional complexity, especially in projects requiring specific ecommerce functionalities.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, is tailored specifically for Shopify storefronts, providing a more streamlined and focused toolkit for ecommerce solutions.
