The headless commerce architecture is transforming how modern businesses approach their ecommerce technology stack. The motto is to stay lightweight, independent, and faster deployment of microservices and APIs to keep business running smoothly. The blog explores what headless Magento is, its benefits, and how to use it. It explains how headless Magento helps adapt to changing customer expectations.
What is Headless Adobe (Magento)?
Headless Magento separates the frontend store and backend system. The storefront is built using JavaScript tools like React or Vue.js. The Magento backend exposes product data, orders, etc., via APIs that the frontend code calls. So, the frontend code is decoupled from the Magento backend code. This allows online merchants to deliver fast, customized store experiences.
Additionally, Online merchants can:
- Build a progressive web app (PWA) as your storefront
- Have greater flexibility over the frontend tech stack
- Iterate on the frontend independently from the backend
- Create customized customer experiences across devices and touchpoints
Magento has robust REST and GraphQL APIs that allow you to access catalog data, create orders, manage carts, and more from any client. So, you can use Magento as a headless commerce backend.
The headless architecture allows you to use Magento for what it’s best at — an enterprise-grade, customizable e-commerce engine. And combine it with modern JavaScript frameworks to create fast, engaging customer experiences.
Headless Magento Architecture Vs Platform-Based Magento Architecture
Traditional Magento uses a monolithic architecture where the frontend and backend are coupled together:
- The Magento frontend codebase generates HTML/CSS/JS that runs on the server.
- This means page loads require making requests to the Magento server.
- The frontend and backend code are tightly integrated and deployed together.
In Magento 2 headless, the frontend is decoupled from the backend:
- Magento runs as an API-driven service exposing data via REST and GraphQL endpoints.
- The frontend is built as a separate app using a modern JS framework like React, Vue, etc.
- The frontend makes API calls to Magento for data. No need to load entire pages from Magento.
- Frontend code is hosted and deployed separately from Magento.
This allows for:
- Faster page loads since HTML/CSS/JS assets are served from a CDN. No server-side rendering.
- Easier iteration of frontend code without affecting the backend.
- Greater flexibility to use different technologies for frontend apps.
- Ability to have web, mobile, IoT, etc. apps consume the same Magento APIs.
So, headless architecture decouples the frontend code from the Magento commerce backend to allow for faster, more flexible storefront experiences.
Benefits of decoupling the frontend and backend:
- Independent development — frontend developers can build the storefront app without needing to know Magento. Changes to frontend code don’t affect the backend.
- Faster iteration — frontend code can be iterated quickly without redeploying the backend. No need to clear caches/reindex after frontend changes.
- Flexibility — can build frontend apps using any language/framework and consume Magento APIs. It is not limited to the PHP/Magento frontend stack.
- Frontend app scalability — storefront apps served via CDN independent of Magento scaling. No server-side rendering load.
- Developer productivity — frontend developers use familiar frameworks and tools like React, Vue.js, Webpack, etc., instead of PHP/Magento stack.
So, decoupling frontend and backend allows for greater agility and productivity in delivering customized storefront experiences.
API-Driven Approach
Magento headless transforms the platform into an API-driven service for accessing commerce data programmatically.
Instead of rendering HTML/CSS/JS pages on the server, Magento exposes product data, carts, orders, etc., via APIs.
The key APIs available are:
- REST API — Provides REST endpoints to access entities like products, categories, customers, carts, orders, etc. Supports operations like CRUD, search, and bulk actions using HTTP requests.
- GraphQL API — An alternative to REST API using the GraphQL query language. Allows fetching multiple entities in a single call, customizing response data, and real-time updates via subscriptions.
- Asynchronous Bulk APIs — Optimized for importing/exporting large amounts of data like catalog, orders, etc., in an async non-blocking manner.
- Services APIs — SOAP and XML-RPC APIs are used by extensions and integrations to access different Magento services.
With a headless approach, the frontend storefront app uses these APIs to get catalog data, create carts/orders, process payments, etc.
Benefits of an API-driven architecture:
- Flexibility — Can build apps using any language or framework since Magento provides language-agnostic APIs.
- Productivity — Faster for frontend devs to use familiar JS frameworks than PHP/Magento templating system.
- Performance — Storefront apps don’t load unnecessary page weight and assets from Magento. API calls faster than full page loads.
- Scalability — APIs can be scaled independently from the rest of Magento.
- Agility — Frontend apps can be updated/deployed faster without affecting the Magento backend.
So, APIs allow delivering customized, high-performance storefronts decoupled from the Magento commerce backend.
What are the advantages of Headless Magento?
Speed and Performance
One of the biggest benefits of headless Magento 2 is significantly faster page loads and overall site performance.
With the traditional Magento architecture, the storefront is rendered on the server. Every page request goes through PHP rendering to generate the HTML, collect assets like CSS/JS, and then send the fully constructed page to the browser.
This results in a slower experience for customers for multiple reasons:
- Server-side rendering and page construction add latency.
- The HTML payload itself is bloated with unnecessary code and assets loaded on each page.
- Assets cannot be efficiently cached and served from a CDN.
With headless Magento, the storefront is built as a separate frontend app using frameworks like React, Vue.js, Angular, etc. The frontend app directly calls Magento’s REST and GraphQL APIs to get catalog data, cart information, place orders, etc.
This allows for optimizing performance in multiple ways:
- No server-side rendering means pages load extremely fast.
- Granular API calls are faster than loading entire monolithic pages.
- Static assets can be served from a CDN for global low-latency delivery.
- The Frontend app can be optimized without being limited by Magento server constraints.
Headless architecture also allows leveraging new technologies like static site generators that prerender content as flat HTML files. The frontend app simply loads the prebuilt HTML/CSS/JS without needing client-server interaction.
Developer Productivity
Another major benefit of headless Magento is increased developer productivity.
With traditional Magento, frontend developers need to work within the constraints of PHP templates, use Magento-specific code, and switch between different languages and frameworks.
With headless, the frontend codebase is completely decoupled from Magento. This allows frontend developers to work exclusively with modern JavaScript tools and frameworks like:
- React
- Vue
- Angular
- Ember
- Svelte
- Webpack
- Jest
- Cypress
- Storybook
Frontend developers can leverage these highly productive tools and avoid context-switching between different languages and frameworks.
Developers can also use next-gen JS frameworks like React Server Components and React Async Mode for optimized performance without being limited by PHP/Magento conventions.
Overall, developer productivity and satisfaction increase significantly. Features can be built much faster without draining engineering resources.
Agility and Feature Velocity
The decoupled architecture also brings tremendous agility and faster release.
With traditional Magento, the frontend code is tightly coupled with the backend code. So any changes to the frontend requires redeploying the entire Magento application.
This leads to slower release cycles due to:
- We need to retest the entire system, even for small frontend changes.
- Dependency on backend redeployment and downtime.
- Clearing cache and reindexing adding overhead.
With headless Magento, the frontend is independent from the backend. This allows frontend developers to release changes, add features, and fix bugs without redeploying Magento itself.
The frontend app can be deployed separately on its own infrastructure. It simply needs to call Magento’s APIs, which act as a consistent facade for the backend.
This greatly accelerates the ability to get new features, UI changes, and experiments live in front of customers. Businesses can deliver innovation faster.
Omnichannel Experience
Headless architecture also unlocks the ability to deliver true omnichannel experiences.
Instead of separate mobile apps, websites, and in-store kiosks accessing their own separate commerce backends, Magento 2 headless allows building these as different presentation frontends consuming the same APIs.
For example, your native iOS and Android apps can call the same Magento GraphQL API as your website. This prevents duplicating business logic across channels and allows delivering a consistent experience:
- Same product catalog, pricing, and inventory across web, mobile, and in-store.
- Shared cart and order management.
- Unified customer account and order history.
- Consistent promotions and discounts.
New channels can be added simply by building a new frontend app that calls the same Magento APIs. There is no need to reimplement commerce logic specific to each channel.
This simplifies IT architecture and provides customers with a seamless experience.
Progressive Web Apps
Headless Magento opens the door for brands to deliver progressive web app (PWA) storefronts that blur the line between website and mobile app.
PWA frameworks like React allow building a website that has an app-like user experience with features like:
- Install to Home Screen
- Push Notifications
- Splash Screens
- Offline Browsing
This results in a faster, more engaging storefront. PWAs built with React can have initial loads under 1 second versus 10+ seconds for traditional Magento stores.
The offline support improves reliability for customers in areas with poor connectivity. Features like push notifications encourage re-engagement.
Overall, PWAs built using headless Magento provide a modern, app-like shopping experience that delights customers and improves business metrics.
Flexibility
Decoupling the frontend from the Magento backend also provides immense flexibility to leverage different technologies.
The Magento APIs provide a consistent interface to its commerce services like catalog, cart, checkout, etc. The frontend apps simply need to call these APIs.
This allows building the frontend presentation layer using the optimal framework or language for that particular use case.
For example:
- Building a customer-facing B2C storefront with React
- An admin portal with Vue.js
- Native mobile apps with Swift or Kotlin that call Magento GraphQL APIs
- A voice app with an Alexa skills kit that leverages Magento’s REST API
- An in-store internet-of-things kiosk built on Raspberry Pi
The headless approach future-proofs businesses from changing frontend technologies and allows optimizing the tech per use case.
Scalability
Headless architecture also brings scalability benefits by decoupling the storefront apps from the Magento backend.
In the traditional coupled approach, scaling the overall application requires scaling all parts of Magento, including frontend web servers, databases, caches, etc.
The frontend and backend are tightly linked, making it challenging to scale them independently.
With headless, the frontend apps and Magento services can be scaled independently:
- Frontend apps can run separate infrastructure that auto-scales based on traffic.
- Magento APIs and microservices can be scaled to meet demand without being affected by frontend load.
- Static assets are served via easily scalable CDN.
By splitting the stack into separate frontend apps and APIs, hurdles can be independently diagnosed and addressed. This makes the overall system more scalable.
Maintainability
Headless architecture improves code maintainability by decomposing the commerce system into separate frontend apps and backend services.
In traditional Magento, the frontend and backend code are tightly coupled together into a monolithic application. This makes the codebase challenging to maintain over time:
- Harder to isolate root cause of bugs — could be frontend or backend.
- Cascading side effects from changes due to coupling.
- Frontend developers need to understand PHP/Magento backend complexities.
With headless Magento, the frontend codebase is completely independent of the backend. This improves development and maintainability:
- Clean separation of concerns between UI code and business logic.
- Frontend code can be optimized without constraints imposed by the backend.
- Developers can specialize and work exclusively on the frontend or backend.
Overall, a headless approach results in more modular, maintainable codebases that improve team productivity and happiness.
Technology Flexibility
Headless architecture provides much more flexibility in adopting new technologies than monolithic systems.
With traditional Magento, your choice of frontend technologies is limited to the PHP capabilities of Magento. Adopting new language frameworks like React, mobile SDK upgrades, etc., requires complex architectural changes.
With headless, the decoupled frontend apps provide freedom to build using optimal languages and frameworks. The frontend can upgrade independently of the backend.
For example, you could build your customer-facing storefront with:
- React (for website)
- React Native (for mobile apps)
- Angular (for internal admin portal)
Over time, upgrade or rebuild specific apps using newer frameworks like Svelte, Flutter, etc., without affecting the overall architecture.
This tech flexibility minimizes the risk of vendor lock-in and allows leveraging the best tools for different use cases.
Innovation Velocity
The combination of technology flexibility, agile teams, and independent deployment unlocks the velocity of innovation.
With traditional Magento, new features require building within the constraints of the PHP/Magento technology stack. Adding something like a mobile app requires reinventing business logic. Deployments are slower due to testing and risks.
With Magento headless, new customer experiences can be built incredibly fast without being limited by the backend stack. For example:
- Building a customized mobile app experience leveraging React Native and shared Magento APIs.
- Experimenting with conversational commerce by creating a quick Alexa prototype accessing headless Magento.
- Trying out Internet-of-Things by connecting a Raspberry Pi kiosk to Magento GraphQL.
These can be done without changing the core commerce backend. Decoupled frontend apps can also be deployed frequently with modern DevOps practices like continuous delivery.
This unlocks the velocity of innovation as developers can quickly experiment and deliver new experiences leveraging the flexibility of APIs and cloud infrastructure.
Businesses can tap into the latest technologies like AI, AR/VR, IoT, and wearables and quickly bring those experiences to market without massive integration projects.
Third-Party Integrations
The headless architecture provides flexibility to integrate with various third-party solutions instead of being limited to Magento extensions.
Since Magento acts as an API provider, you have options for:
- What presentation layer should you use — React, Vue, voice apps, etc.?
- Payment systems — Adyen, Stripe, Braintree, etc.
- Hosting infrastructure — AWS, GCP, Azure, or even serverless platforms.
- CDN for performance — Fastly, Akamai, Cloudflare.
- Marketing platforms — Segment, Optimizely, MoEngage.
- Review systems — Yotpo, PowerReviews, BazaarVoice.
With a modular headless approach, swapping out or trying different solutions is simplified. You are not limited to solutions that have Magento extensions.
It means we can select the best technologies in each category and innovate faster. Businesses are not locked into a monolithic technology stack.
Future Proofing
The headless and API-driven architecture inherently future-proofs your investment in Magento commerce.
The rate of change in frontend and mobile technology keeps accelerating. Future innovations like AI, AR/VR, blockchain, etc. will emerge.
With monolithic platforms like Magento, adopting these innovations requires significant refactoring of the tightly coupled architecture.
The headless design centered around portable APIs ensures the Magento integration layer withstands shifts in the frontend ecosystem. The frontend apps can be re-engineered as needed while the backend services remain stable.
This future-proofs the business from changes in technology and customer expectations. The decoupled architecture can adapt and support experiences across any device or platform.
Integration Options for Magento, Including Headless Architecture
Magento provides different options for integrations, including headless architecture:
- Magento Extension Marketplace — Find extensions for different features like payments, shipping, and marketing. Can customize open-source extensions.
- Magento Technology Partners — Work with vetted partners that provide complementary solutions for Magento, like payment gateways, CRM, ERP, PIM, order fulfillment, etc.
- Magento Marketplace — Managed cloud hosting as well as turnkey solutions for progressive web apps, optimized performance, and global expansion.
- REST APIs — Integrate using 200+ REST endpoints for entities like products, orders, customers, carts, content, catalog, admin operations, etc.
- GraphQL API — Unify data from multiple API resources using GraphQL for faster performance and customization.
- Services APIs — Low-level SOAP/XML-RPC APIs that extensions can use to integrate with Magento services like checkout, tax, inventory, etc.
- Webhooks — Real-time event notifications to external systems for customer actions like placing orders, updating information, product reviews, etc.
- Headless architecture — Build custom storefront UIs using React, Angular, Vue, etc. that call Magento APIs. Decouple frontend code from Magento backend.
- PWA Studio — Toolkit to build headless progressive web apps that seamlessly connect to Magento.
How Do I Get Started with Headless Magento?
The benefits of a headless Magento 2 approach are clear for delivering fast, flexible, and omnichannel shopping experiences. Here are some tips to get started:
· Evaluate your frontend tech stack goals — React, Vue, Angular, PWA, mobile, etc.
· Audit Magento extensions and integrations on compatibility with headless architecture.
· Explore Magento tools like PWA Studio, Nuxt, and ScandiPWA to accelerate development.
· Start small by building a simple React demo app calling Magento APIs.
· Plan appropriate hosting infrastructure for frontend apps and Magento backend.
· Use modern dev practices like Git, automated testing, and CI/CD.
· Leverage consultancies like Vue Storefront’s expertise if needed.
With the right planning and partnerships, brands can successfully embrace headless Magento to gain a competitive edge. The possibilities are limitless!
