The eCommerce sector is experiencing rapid growth, with global retail sales reaching 5.7 trillion USD in 2022 and projected to hit 6.3 trillion USD in 2023, as reported by Insider Intelligence. This requires businesses to adopt more efficient and flexible eCommerce architectural solutions to meet customer demands for online shopping experiences. 

However, there is no one-size-fits-all eCommerce architectural solution. Each architecture comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages, catering to different goals and requirements. Hence, businesses must discern between eCommerce architectures to choose the most fitting one for their business model. 

This article will introduce the four most common eCommerce architectures: Monolithic, Headless, Composable, and MACH. Also, it’ll compare and evaluate these architectures based on criteria such as cost, scalability, customization, security, and performance.

Monolithic Architecture

Monolithic architecture is a traditional and long-standing model in eCommerce development. In this approach, the entire eCommerce website is built as a unified application on a single source codebase.

This means that both the user interface (frontend) and business logic (backend) are combined and implemented within a comprehensive “all-in-one” system. So, modifications to specific eCommerce components may have repercussions on the overall functionality of the system.

Pros:

• Ease of Deployment: Utilizing the monolithic architecture simplifies the management of a single source codebase and a unified database system for the entire application. This streamlines the processes of deployment, updates, and application modifications.
• Performance: eCommerce components are tightly connected, so for a simple and uncomplicated system, the Monolithic architecture can provide high performance.

Cons: 

• Limited Scalability: The monolithic architecture, being a unified block, faces challenges in scalability and customization, especially as the system grows larger and more complex.
• Maintenance and Updates Difficulty: The tight integration of components within the system makes challenges in maintaining a website under a Monolithic architecture, making it both challenging and costly. Also, any modifications or updates to one component can impact others and the overall system’s functionality.
• Innovation Constraints: While traditional eCommerce architectures are considered stable and reliable, their limitations in scalability and customization make it difficult to keep up with the latest technological advancements.
• Increasing Costs: Initially, implementing a Monolithic system may not be overly complex or expensive. However, as businesses aim to scale, customize, or perform maintenance and updates, costs tend to escalate significantly.

The Monolithic architecture can be used in case your business is implementing a small-scale, straightforward eCommerce system, seeking a rapid market launch without immediate plans for significant future development. However, architectures like Headless or Composable would be more appropriate as the system grows and expands, requiring increased customization and scalability

Headless Architecture

The Headless architecture is a popular architectural solution in eCommerce, where the user interface (frontend) of the eCommerce website is decoupled from the operational system (backend). The Headless architecture is often called “API-first” because the frontend and backend communicate with each other through an API layer.

Many businesses opt for the Headless Commerce model to create and customize user interfaces (frontends) to provide customers with a rich and seamless shopping experience across various channels such as websites, mobile apps, IoT, and POS. These user interfaces can connect to a single backend system through an API layer, enabling businesses to engage in multi-channel commerce and rapidly expand internationally.

Pros:

• Flexibility: Businesses can utilize any technology and tools to develop the frontend, creating a unique and customized user interface and shopping experience without being restricted by predefined themes.
• Ease of Integration: Seamless connection and integration with third-party tools and services through APIs, eliminating the need to rewrite source code.
• High Performance: Since the frontend and backend operate independently, businesses can optimize performance for both, enhancing the overall performance and page loading speed of the eCommerce website.
• Scalability: Businesses can easily customize, add, or remove components of the frontend or backend flexibly without affecting the overall system’s operation. 

Cons:

• Complex Deployment: Because the frontend and backend are separated and developed independently, the deployment process is more time-consuming compared to Monolithic, and ensuring the interaction and efficient operation of both parts can be challenging.
• Specialized Expertise: Headless Commerce allows seamless integration with third-party technologies and systems, requiring technical skills and knowledge of APIs, as well as a certain understanding of different systems.
• High Costs: Utilizing various third-party services implies additional expenses, alongside costs for the development and maintenance of the system.

Deploying Headless Commerce may be suitable for businesses that require flexibility to create and customize multiple user interfaces for multi-channel sales purposes and expand their business globally. In particular, businesses that demand independent development of both frontend and backend, as well as the need for integration with various third-party systems, should prioritize the Headless architecture.

Composable Architecture

If the standout feature of the Headless architecture is the separation of frontend and backend, providing scalability and flexible customization, then the Composable architecture, also known as Module-driven architecture, takes it a step further by decoupling all eCommerce components such as Search, Payment, Cart, etc.

This allows businesses to select components and package them into Packaged Business Capabilities (PBC) to create a specialized and comprehensive eCommerce website solution.

Pros:

• High Flexibility: Implementing Composable Commerce allows businesses to integrate components that best suit their deployment needs. This enables businesses to stay abreast of the latest eCommerce development trends.
• High Customization and Scalability: Components are developed independently, and altering any component does not impact the others. Similarly, customizing and expanding components to meet business objectives can be done without the need to overhaul the entire system architecture.
• Ease of Maintenance: With components in the eCommerce system being separate and developed entirely independently, maintaining and updating each component individually becomes more straightforward, avoiding disruptions or temporary halts to the system’s operation.
• Vendor Independence: The flexibility to seamlessly integrate components from various providers has helped businesses deploying Composable Commerce avoid dependence on a specific service provider. This allows businesses to change providers for any component whenever needed, while also leveraging the latest and optimal technologies for their eCommerce system.

Cons: 

• High Costs: The cost of using each component varies, so the more components integrated, the higher the overall cost, not to mention maintenance costs for each component.
• High Expertise Requirements: Implementing Composable Commerce requires advanced technical skills and specific knowledge of the technologies in use to ensure a quick and effective deployment process.
• Complex Management: Utilizing numerous components means that a business has to work with multiple different providers, each with its own security protocols and compliance requirements. As the eCommerce system scales up, the business needs to collaborate with providers to ensure that each component is developed, expanded, and remains compatible, preventing any negative impacts on the system.

Composable architecture is suitable for cases where businesses undertake large projects, have high demands for flexibility and customization, need to integrate multiple services and third-party systems, as well as require complete independence between the components of the eCommerce system.

MACH Architecture

The MACH architecture is the most modern approach for building and developing highly flexible eCommerce websites. This architecture allows businesses to integrate leading technologies into a single system, incorporating Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless components.

• M (Microservices-based): Independent small applications are developed, deployed, and managed separately. These applications are designed to perform specific business functions.
• A (API-first): All components of the eCommerce system are connected through an Application Programming Interface (API), enabling different components to operate efficiently within the same system.
• C (Cloud-native): The development of the eCommerce system takes place in the cloud, providing a scalable infrastructure, and technology services are automatically updated by the provider.
• H (Headless): Implementing Headless allows the separation of the user interface (frontend) and the operational system (backend) for eCommerce website deployment. This enables the creation and customization of unique and seamless user experiences.

Pros: 

• High Flexibility: Businesses can choose and modify tools and services according to business needs, making it easy to customize and expand services when there is a need to scale the business.
• Easy Integration: APIs are at the core of the MACH architecture, facilitating easy connections with third-party services and applications.
• High Performance and Security: Because businesses can leverage state-of-the-art technologies, it ensures system operational performance, page loading speed, user experience, and high security.  

Cons: 

• High Complexity: The separation of many components and technologies makes the deployment of the MACH architecture complex. This requires high technical skills and experience to ensure an effective deployment, management, and operation of the system.
• High Costs: Integrating multiple technologies or incorporating various third-party services can result in higher expenses, such as integration fees, training fees, or hiring a deployment team, along with maintenance and update-related costs.

MACH architecture is suitable for businesses with ample budgets aiming to implement large projects based on the four MACH technologies and with high requirements for customization and scalability. It is also beneficial if they have in-house expertise or collaborate with highly specialized development teams.

Monolithic, Headless, Composable and MACH: Which is the right choice?

Above is a summary of the essence of the four eCommerce website deployment architectures: Monolithic, Headless, Composable, and MACH. While Monolithic may seem outdated and has many limitations, the Composable and MACH architectures are innovative, providing more optimal and flexible development solutions, but their deployment and operation processes are complex, requiring a highly skilled development team. Therefore, Headless becomes a valuable architectural solution compared to the other three choices for implementing eCommerce websites at the current time.

Headless Commerce is the most popular solution today, with a 25% increase in demand for Headless Commerce deployment in the past two years. Implementing Headless allows businesses to create a customized and multi-channel user experience by integrating with leading tools and technologies. To effectively develop Headless Commerce, businesses need to collaborate with a development team with high skills and expertise, as well as a well-thought-out strategy.

With extensive technical experience and high expertise in the e-commerce field, SECOMM has successfully consulted and implemented Headless Commerce for leading businesses such as Vinamilk, and Suzuverse, based on one of Shopify’s three solutions:

• Shopify Hydrogen + Oxygen: This superior solution includes the Hydrogen framework based on React and the Oxygen hosting, enabling businesses to quickly and effectively deploy an eCommerce website using the Headless architecture.
• Commerce Components: A breakthrough tech stack developed specifically for large enterprises implementing Headless Commerce or Composable Commerce. This solution allows businesses to integrate independent components to customize and enhance the eCommerce experience.

Contact SECOMM or call directly on the hotline (02871089908) to explore how we can support businesses in maximizing the potential of Headless Commerce and enhancing competitiveness in the eCommerce market.

The 2022 Headless CMS market was valued at approximately $592.43 million and is projected to reach $672.09 million by the end of 2023. These figures come as no surprise as Headless CMS has become increasingly popular in recent years due to the numerous benefits it offers to businesses. These benefits include cost-effectiveness, the ability to distribute and repurpose content across various channels, high customization and flexibility to work with any technology or framework, a future-proof architecture that can seamlessly integrate with third-party services, and adaptability to emerging technologies.

These advantages have encouraged businesses to adopt Headless CMS to enhance their online presence. However, the first crucial step is selecting the most suitable platform from the many excellent options available.

This article will provide an overview of the top 10 leading Headless CMS platforms, highlighting their distinctive features, as well as their pros and cons, to assist businesses in making an informed choice

Sanity

Sanity stands out as a cloud-based Headless CMS platform that provides businesses with a suite of tools for content creation, editing, organization, and publication. Renowned for its remarkable flexibility and impressive scalability, this platform accommodates projects of varying complexity, from straightforward to intricate. Sanity offers robust support for developers working with an array of frameworks including React, Vue, Next.js, Nust.js, Remix, Svelte, Eleventy, Gatsby, and more. 

Moreover, it extends its compatibility to multiple programming languages like JavaScript, PHP, Rust, and others, enabling businesses to seamlessly integrate with diverse platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Algolia, Commerce Layer, Mux, Cloudinary, Transifex, and more.

Key features

• Real-time Collaboration: Allows multiple users to collaboratively edit content in real-time.
• Flexible Editing Environment: Supports editing across various devices and enables scheduled content releases or app updates.
• Portable Text Format: Easily creates and manages complex content with embedded data using Portable Text.
• Integration Capabilities: Connects services, user interfaces, applications, scripts, and devices through the Sanity API. Queries content using GROQ or GraphQL.
• Sanity Content Lake: Cloud-hosted content storage managed entirely by Sanity. Accessible via the Sanity API, Sanity’s client libraries, or directly through the HTTP API.

Pros

• Flexibility: Sanity allows businesses to structure content according to specific needs.
• Customizable Content Management Interface: The content management interface can be tailored to align with brand characteristics, ensuring a consistent user experience across channels.
• User Collaboration Transparency: User avatars are displayed when editing content, and the entire content creation and editing process can be directly tracked, enhancing team efficiency.
• Developer-Friendly: Sanity is developer-friendly, providing numerous support tools, APIs, and frontend frameworks for easy content creation, customization, and integration.

Cons

• Besides the costs mentioned in the pricing table, the implementation cost of Sanity will increase depending on specific needs. For example, businesses will incur additional expenses to integrate the Mux plugin for managing video content.
• Many features and technical concepts require users to invest more time and effort in understanding and implementing.

Pricing

Sanity offers four solution packages for businesses to choose from:

• Free Forever: Provides 3 non-admin user accesses.
• Team: $99/month/project, suitable for small businesses, offering 10 non-admin user accesses.
• Business: $949/month/project, designed for medium-sized businesses, providing 20 non-admin user accesses.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing based on needs, intended for large-scale businesses, offering unlimited user access.

Storyblok

Storyblok is a leading API-first Headless CMS that prioritizes businesses’ ability to effortlessly generate, oversee, and disseminate content across multiple platforms. This software offers a user-friendly interface, empowering content marketers to efficiently oversee and adapt content without demanding extensive technical proficiency. Storyblok also aids developers through various APIs like GraphQL, Management API, and Content Delivery API, and is compatible with frameworks such as React, Vue.js, Angular, Nuxt.js, Next.js, and Gatsby.

Key features

• Visualize collaboration processes and easily create and edit content through Visual Editor and Collaboration tools.
• Streamline content management for text, images, and videos with the Digital Asset Manager, equipped with advanced tagging and hierarchical folder organization.
• Leverage Storyblok’s Composable Component functionality to convert inflexible templates into versatile, dynamic components that can be seamlessly integrated and reused across diverse digital platforms.
• Achieve multilingual content distribution to international markets with Localization capabilities.

Pros

• High flexibility and customization options enable businesses to add or remove features based on practical needs.
• Storyblok provides in-depth documentation for every topic, assisting developers in understanding how to use features and deploy services effectively

Cons

• Pricing currency is in EUR instead of USD.
• The Visual Editor interface can sometimes lag.
• Monthly bandwidth usage is limited and may require purchasing additional bandwidth at a relatively high cost.

Chi phí

Storyblok offers a variety of solution packages for businesses, including:

• Community: Free forever, includes 1 registered account per user seat.
• Entry: €99/month, 5 registered users, up to 30 registered accounts per user seat. Suitable for small businesses and startups entering the content management system.
• Teams: €449/month, 10 registered users, up to 40 registered accounts per user seat. Suitable for growing businesses with content distribution needs.
• Enterprise: €2,999/month, 30 registered users, and unlimited additional registered accounts per user seat. High-level security and scalability with many outstanding features for large enterprises.
• Enterprise Plus: Custom pricing based on needs, offering the highest level of security and scalability among solution packages.

Contentful

Contentful stands out as an API-first Headless CMS, prized for its adaptability and remarkable scalability. It enables businesses to effortlessly craft, oversee, and distribute content across diverse channels and devices, encompassing websites, applications, IoT gadgets, and beyond. Contentful boasts a rich assortment of APIs, such as REST, GraphQL, Content Management API, Content Delivery API, and Content Preview API, among others.

Key features:

• Quickly create projects tailored to your needs using customizable templates based on the Next.js framework and Contentful CMS, whether it’s an eCommerce website or a blog site.
• Leverage Content Apps or integrate with third-party applications to streamline content production and publishing workflows for optimal efficiency.
• Contentful supports content localization for global marketing strategies, enabling you to adapt and target content for international audiences.
• Swiftly review, approve, and schedule the batch publishing of crucial content, such as product launches, advertisements, and rebranding initiatives, all at once.

Pros:

• Contentful offers a friendly and easy-to-use interface.
• It provides extensive support and learning resources for developers to enhance their skills, particularly for complex projects.
• Contentful includes numerous tools for efficient teamwork, such as the Compose app, Launch app, and Workflow app.

Cons:

• Contentful has limitations in terms of previewing and editing images.
• Depending on the subscription plan, businesses are provided with a certain amount of space and components. When these limits are reached, businesses have two options: either delete items to free up space or upgrade their space. This can be inconvenient and may result in additional costs.

Pricing:

Contentful currently offers three solution packages:

• Free: Designed for individual developers working on personal projects. It includes one space license, supports up to 5 users, and does not offer the option to upgrade or purchase additional space.

• Basic: Priced at $300 per month, this package includes one space license and is suitable for teams building websites or apps. It supports a maximum of 20 users and provides the option to upgrade to the Medium plan for an additional cost of $350 per month.

• Premium: Tailored for large enterprises, the pricing for this package is customized based on specific needs and is billed annually. It includes two space licenses, allows for a large number of users (up to thousands), and offers advanced space upgrades to Medium, Large, or Premium spaces for an additional fee.

Strapi

Strapi is an open-source JavaScript-based Headless CMS celebrated for its robust customization and expansive capabilities. Strapi provides developers with a wide array of APIs, including REST, GraphQL, Entity Service, Query Engine APIs, and more. Furthermore, it seamlessly integrates with popular frameworks such as Vue.js, Angular, React, Next.js, Eleventy, Svelte, and more.

Notably, Strapi boasts a user-friendly interface, empowering content marketers to swiftly create, edit, and publish content without the need for extensive programming skills. This reduces reliance on developers. Additionally, Strapi shines with its Omnichannel capabilities, enabling content dissemination across diverse channels, including websites, apps, and IoT devices.

Key features

• Support for multi-database environments, including SQLite, MongoDB, MySQL, and Postgres.
• A single programming language – JavaScript, from frontend to backend.
• Seamless Omnichannel capabilities for distributing content across multiple channels.
• Unlimited support for APIs, content types, admin panel users, and more.
• Webhooks facilitate connections between Strapi apps and other applications to notify them of events, particularly useful for informing third-party applications about the start of processes like continuous integration (CI), building, and deployment.
• Internationalization with the i18n framework, allowing for unlimited multi-language, multi-location projects.

Pros

• Seamless integration with Node.js.
• Easy API customization.
• Scalability and handling high traffic with ease.
• Intuitive and user-friendly user interface (UI).
• Abundant learning resources.

Cons

• Lack of support for advanced JavaScript versions like TypeScript.
• Limitation on the number of registered accounts per user depending on the solution package.

• Several features and specialized concepts may require users to invest significant time and effort in understanding and implementing them.

Pricing

Strapi offers four solution packages for businesses to choose from:

Self-hosted (self-hosted by the business)

• Community Edition: Free forever
• Enterprise Edition: Custom pricing based on needs

Cloud (hosted by Strapi)

• Pro: $99/month/project, with a 14-day free trial
• Team: $499/month/project, with a 14-day free trial

Hygraph

Hygraph is a federated content platform that enables the integration of content data from various sources and backends into a single storage repository through a GraphQL API without the need to move or create multiple copies of that content.

Headless CMS vs Federated Content Platform

user interface, enabling the distribution of content across various digital channels. However, in line with technological advancements, CMS providers are attempting to consolidate all content data within the CMS itself, creating what is known as a Content Hub, from which they distribute content. 

Nonetheless, this approach has its drawbacks as it necessitates continuous data synchronization, which may not always ensure data accuracy when delivered to diverse channels. In such scenarios, a Federated Content Platform offers a pragmatic solution by integrating and storing content and data from any third-party system via GraphQL API or REST API, subsequently distributing the original data to multiple channels.

Looking at the scenario with Hygraph, it serves as a central hub for integrating and storing data from various sources. Acting as an API gateway, any changes made to the original data are first updated within Hygraph and then distributed to one or more front-end platforms. Users of Hygraph can access this updated data from multiple sources but are unable to make direct edits, preventing the proliferation of multiple data versions.

Key features

• Schema Builder: Provides developers and content marketers with user-friendly tools for creating templates to meet the diverse content needs of businesses.
• Custom Roles & Permissions: Established by the Administrator and Project Owner, it’s easy to control what users can see based on their roles within the system. There will be various system roles, but they generally include Owner, Admin, Developer, Editor, and Contributor. Owners and Admins can easily create custom roles for developers like “Create New Role” and “Update Existing Roles” using the permissions provided by the Management API. When setting up custom roles, businesses need to select all Read permissions to grant users the essential functionalities required while using the platform.
• Hygraph’s webhooks can integrate with third-party services to quickly update changes in project content in real-time.
• Scheduled Publishing allows content marketers to schedule content or campaigns for publication at a specific time in the future.
• The Rich Text Editor, sometimes called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), is available for all of Hygraph’s solutions. Businesses can add the Rich Text Editor to any content section through the Schema Builder, making it easy for content marketers to create and edit text and images flexibly.
• Localization – content localization for global marketing strategies.

Pros

• The Content Federation capability ensures that APIs can store and deliver data accurately to various different frontends.
• Customizable roles promote efficient collaboration in the workflow.
• Display content performance analytics for businesses to measure traffic and engagement.

Cons

• The API functionality is rated as somewhat slow, taking from 3 to 8 seconds.
• Many concepts and features require time and effort to grasp.

Pricing

Hygraph offers three main solution packages for businesses:

• Community: Forever free, suitable for individuals and small projects.
• Self-service: Suitable for businesses in development.
• Professional: $399 per month per project.
• Scale: $899 per month per project.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing based on specific needs, suitable for large enterprises.

Brands that use Hygraph include Samsung, Shure, Booking.com, Philips, Telenor, Ashley, Dr. Oetker, Neat, Dmarket, Flybondi.com, etc.

To learn more about Headless CMS and choose the right deployment platform, please contact SECOMM or call our hotline at (028) 7108 9908 for a free consultation.