Back to the Future with Hyvä: Developers’ Perspective

It’s become more and more obvious to everyone in the Magento sphere – Hyvä is the future. This cutting-edge frontend theme solves some of Magento’s long-standing issues while achieving stunning results when it comes to speed and performance. It’s true: just take a look at the core web vitals of any Hyvä store.

Hyvä has changed how we work with Magento, and no one can better attest to this than our own frontend team, wrestling with Magento at the front lines. We’ve already written at length about the benefits of Hyvä, but hearing our frontend developers’ first-hand experiences can give even more weight to these advantages.

Magento Before Hyvä

Previously, Magento 2 stores have relied on default themes such as Blank or Luma that load a lot of unnecessary frontend elements. This tended to result in a slower online store, adversely affecting SEO ranking and conversion rates. In short, there was too much bloat.

Josip, our frontend developer, can explain in more detail what the issues with Magento 2 were.

Hyvä is well-known as a frontend theme that helps resolve some long-standing issues with Magento. What were some common obstacles you faced in working with Magento before Hyvä?

The main problem with developing the default Magento 2 theme was performance issues. The default Magento frontend uses heavy JavaScript libraries, leading to sluggish page load times that negatively impact user experience and SEO.

As a developer, it was sometimes impossible to improve the website further due to the limitations of the tech stack. Additionally, the default Magento frontend lacked flexibility, making customizations to meet specific business requirements often cumbersome and time-consuming.

For me, the most frustrating aspect of developing the default Magento 2 theme was the poor developer experience, as I did not find the process enjoyable. These problems caused frustration for merchants because they needed to invest more to see only a small improvement in performance or to obtain functionality that was crucial for their business.

As new competitors emerged, it was becoming plain Magento’s frontend was turning outdated. Despite its robust functionalities, slow and stagnant stores in this day and age were becoming unacceptable. Magento wasn’t cool anymore.

Thankfully, Hyvä appeared as a community initiative intended to resolve this issue. As some say, the frontend theme everyone wished Magento had long had.

Hyvä Developer Experience

Developer experience has become an important topic over the years. A lot of eCommerce projects require solutions that may not be there right out of the box, but need developers to build and maintain.

It is underestimated how much good code can contribute to a project. It makes the developers’ experience easier and more enjoyable, saves time, and enables them to have greater focus on other areas of the project. Additionally, it ensures any future developers will have an easier time delving into the project and getting versed in its code.

The same is true for any project; if you have a good experience working on it, you will be better motivated and deliver better results. Frustration is rarely a good motivator.

How did Hyvä help resolve Magento’s issues? Did it improve your experience?

Working with Hyvä is more enjoyable because you can use technologies that are widely adopted beyond just the Magento 2 world. Additionally, when someone asks how long a task will take, I can provide a more accurate estimate compared to the old Magento 2 theme development.

Additionally, developers find it more enjoyable to create new themes and functionality with Hyvä compared to the default Magento 2 theme. They also structure the code much better than in the old Magento 2.

An additional testament to the experience of working with Hyva comes from Karlo, our junior frontend developer.

Karlo, how was your onboarding experience with both Magento and Hyvä?

Since I haven’t worked with Magento before, I was expecting a complicated platform. I couldn’t have imagined how many different options and possibilities exist, and how truly complex and intricate everything is.

Onboarding initially seemed difficult, and it took several months to get a rough understanding of how things work. However, thanks to great colleagues who were always ready to help, it wasn’t as daunting in the end, and the implementation of Hyvä made working with Magento much easier.

As Josip explains, Hyvä is a great starting point because it addresses many of Magento’s problems related to performance issues. It solves them by replacing heavy JavaScript libraries with vanilla JavaScript and a small framework called Alpine.js. by using Tailwind CSS for styling.

With reduced complexity, as well as better speed and performance, online stores built with Hyvä can breeze through core web vitals with flying colors, making Magento cool again.

The Future of Hyvä

Hyvä is still growing, updates are common, and new features continue to be rolled out. What anyone who chooses Hyvä can expect can be best explained by Josip.

What benefits does Hyvä offer to merchants? How does a Hyvä-Powered Magento product compare to a Magento product?

If a merchant decides to go with a new theme on Hyvä, they can be confident their new theme will perform better than one developed on the default Magento 2 stack. New customizations and functionalities will also be implemented faster.

Though Hyvä doesn’t have as many modules readily available compared to the default Magento 2 theme, many companies that create modules now support Hyvä and are working on making them compatible. Even if some modules are not compatible with Hyvä, the long-term benefits of additional adjustments make the investment worth it.

Additionally, one of the most significant features they offer is Hyvä Checkout, which can effectively replace the default Magento 2 checkout and also reduce complexity and the time required to create a better checkout process.

Here in Inchoo, the frontend theme has already become the future. Our HNK Hajduk project, utilizing Hyvä Themes, was a great success, and we have continued working with the platform ever since.

Josip, how do you see future work with Hyvä?

I believe Hyvä is well suited as a long term solution and that they will continue to optimize the theme further in the future. While the initial cost of creating a new webshop with Hyvä might be similar, it provides superior UI and UX.

At Inchoo, we always strive to ensure the new site excels by delivering the best possible result. Additionally, any customizations and new features after the initial launch can be implemented much faster with Hyvä due to its efficient code structure.

And you, Karlo?

I believe it will take some time to transfer all the functionalities we used on Magento to Hyvä, but once that is done, the work will be faster and easier.

And there you have it: a first-hand perspective from those who are putting Hyvä to use. Hyvä makes Magento projects easier for our developers, allowing them greater time and creativity to get any project done even better.

Visit our Hyvä-Powered Magento page to learn even more about all of Hyvä’s benefits and how they can help your eCommerce business, whether that means building a whole new online storefront, or migrating from another platform.

It’s worth it, we promise.