WHAT IS HEADLESS CMS? HEADLESS CMS VS TRADITIONAL CMS

Today’s eCommerce consumers are no longer confined to a single channel or device for their shopping needs. They have a ton of options, including mobile apps and social media platforms. As a result, businesses are striving to establish a robust multi-channel presence to swiftly engage with their customers. One highly effective approach to achieving this goal is through the implementation of Headless Commerce. 

In recent years, investors have shown a significant interest in Headless Commerce platforms and associated solutions, recognizing their pivotal role in shaping the future of online commerce.

Forbes reports that between 2020 and 2021 alone, more than $1.65 billion in funding was directed toward Headless technologies. In response to this evolving landscape, Shopify unveiled the Hydrogen solution in June 2021, designed to facilitate the development of headless Commerce storefronts. 

The following article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of Shopify Hydrogen, shedding light on both its pros and cons. 

Overview

Shopify offers businesses the Hydrogen framework solution, originally based on React but now being developed with Remix, in conjunction with the global hosting solution known as Oxygen.

What is Shopify Hydrogen?

In the past, Shopify website developers utilized the platform’s templating language known as Liquid, which often faced performance limitations. Consequently, to ensure top-notch website performance for headless commerce, Shopify businesses require a specialized solution.

Typically, businesses implementing headless projects on Shopify Plus opt for the React framework over Liquid due to its superior technical aspects. Moreover, headless stores on Shopify Plus offer heightened flexibility, customization, and scalability compared to standard headless stores on Shopify.

Therefore, Shopify has introduced a solution that allows both Shopify Plus and standard Shopify businesses to build and advance the most optimized headless eCommerce websites possible. This led to the creation of the Hydrogen framework solution and Oxygen hosting.

Shopify Hydrogen is a React-based framework that empowers developers to craft distinctive and entirely customized frontend Shopify experiences. This framework encompasses all the essential structures, components, and pre-built tools necessary for developers to swiftly create headless stores and deliver personalized user experiences.

What is Shopify Oxygen?

Shopify Oxygen is a worldwide hosting solution designed to store custom content, like Hydrogen stores, directly within the Shopify platform. Previously, Shopify businesses seeking to develop Headless Commerce had to depend on third-party hosting providers (e.g., Netlify).

In contrast, Oxygen is supported by Shopify’s extensive global infrastructure, featuring over 100 server locations worldwide. Thanks to this, Hydrogen stores can seamlessly and directly integrate with Oxygen hosting through the Storefront API, eliminating the need for reliance on third-party providers.

Remix – The New Highlight of Shopify Hydrogen

In the first quarter of 2023, Shopify unveiled Hydrogen v2, highlighting the web development tool called Remix. This tool has earned recognition from developers as one of the top React frameworks, trailing only behind Next.js. Consequently, Shopify acquired Remix and designated it as the cornerstone of the Shopify Hydrogen solution.

The reason for this lies in the fact that Hydrogen v1 faced performance-related criticisms after some time in operation. The acquisition of Remix is a part of Shopify’s efforts to rectify these issues, leading to the emergence of Hydrogen v2.

While developers tend to favor Next.js over Remix due to its open structure, allowing for greater customization and offering a more favorable developer experience, it doesn’t guarantee output quality and website performance.

Conversely, Remix employs a closed structure that mandates developers to adhere to the framework’s template. This approach closely aligns with Shopify’s SaaS model, providing a web development framework and enforcing developers to follow specific principles during deployment. 

This adherence ensures website performance and significantly enhances conversion rates. Therefore, Remix is the ideal solution chosen by Shopify to address the existing performance gaps in Hydrogen stores and enhance the eCommerce experience for customers.

Pros of Shopify Hydrogen

Developed based on React

Hydrogen represents Shopify’s investment in the development of Headless eCommerce. Therefore, it’s fair to classify any Shopify store using the Hydrogen framework and Oxygen hosting as a Headless Shopify store.

The Headless architecture has consistently garnered praise from industry experts, who anticipate its continuous evolution. Shopify’s decision to incorporate React – the JavaScript library for frontend interface development – as the cornerstone of the Hydrogen solution underscores this platform’s forward-looking perspective on the future of eCommerce, firmly rooted in the Headless trend.

Diverse Integration

The launch of Shopify Hydrogen aims to assist businesses in building professional Headless eCommerce websites and providing customers with a seamless multi-channel experience.

Therefore, Shopify extends the capability to seamlessly integrate Hydrogen stores with various third-party applications and platforms like Klaviyo, Gorgias, and Rebuy (to enhance the customer experience), as well as Sanity, Contentful, and Builder.io (for Headless CMS implementation). 

Learn more about Headless CMS:

• What is Headless CMS?
• 10 Enterprise Headless CMS Platforms (Pt.1)

Flexible Customization 

Numerous enterprises choose to implement Headless eCommerce because it grants them full control over the development of the frontend interface, free from the limitations of specific platforms. Shopify Hydrogen also empowers businesses to construct entirely personalized headless website interfaces and integrate essential features for expansion.

Cons of Shopify Hydrogen

Technical Skill Required 

Hydrogen solution empowers businesses to leverage the potential of Headless eCommerce, but it’s predominantly a technically-driven endeavor without a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for non-technical users to easily access and modify.

Hence, the development process necessitates the engagement of highly proficient developers with programming expertise and a specific comprehension of Hydrogen and Oxygen. In this scenario, businesses have two choices: establish an in-house team of developers or partner with an external specialized entity for swift deployment.

Limited CMS Integration.

Because it relies on the React framework, Hydrogen can assist developers in creating custom frontends, but the backend CMS functionality must be connected to enable the headless eCommerce website’s operation.

However, as of now, Hydrogen is limited to integrating with specific CMS platforms like Sanity, Contentful, and Builder.io, leaving businesses responsible for connecting with others independently.

Limited 3rd-party Integration

Much like CMS platforms, Hydrogen supports businesses in integrating with third-party provider applications, but it has rather limited options. Currently, there are only 13 available applications that businesses can incorporate into their Hydrogen store.

In the many years of implementing Headless eCommerce for numerous clients across various countries, SECOMM has noticed an increasing demand for creating Headless websites using the Shopify platform. Now, businesses have a choice: they can either leverage Shopify’s tech stack (Hydrogen and Oxygen) or build a custom stack tailored to their unique requirements.

This further solidifies Shopify as one of the most flexible eCommerce platforms today, leading the way towards the next generation of eCommerce experiences.

Contact us or call SECOMM’s hotline (02871089908) for a free consultation.

BigCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce website-building platforms today. Its flexibility, user-friendliness, cost-effectiveness, and a wide array of built-in tools and features make it a preferred choice for businesses of all sizes.

This article aims to clarify the definition of BigCommerce, its features, pros and cons to provide businesses with valuable insights into the multitude of platforms available for selection.

What is BigCommerce?

Established in 2009, BigCommerce is a user-friendly platform tailored for businesses of all sizes and technical expertise to start developing their own eCommerce websites. Over the years, BigCommerce has emerged as one of the most feature-rich platforms, encompassing all the essentials for website creation, search engine optimization, marketing, and more, all at a cost-effective implementation.

In addition, BigCommerce is known as a SaaS eCommerce solution, which means businesses subscribe on a monthly basis, and the platform takes care of hosting, maintenance, and system security matters.

BigCommerce Pricing Plans

BigCommerce provides three pricing plans tailored for small and medium-sized businesses (Standard, Plus, Pro), priced between $29 and $299 per month, each equipped with essential features. Moreover, the platform offers a customizable plan (Enterprise) for large businesses based on their deployment requirements.

The table below illustrates the cost variations among these four pricing plans and includes some relevant factors:

Despite several differences, all four packages share some common points:

• No transaction fee
• Unlimited bandwidth, products, file storage
• Unlimited staff accounts
• 24/7 customer support
• 12 free themes

BigCommerce Features

Included in all plans

Key features of BigCommerce, available in all four pricing plans, include:

• Point of Sale (POS): Seamless integration of online and offline sales with POS systems like Vend, Square, Clover, and more.
• Mobile-Responsive Design: Websites are designed to adapt and perform well on mobile devices.
• BigCommerce Mobile App: Manage orders, track customer journeys, and monitor performance via the user-friendly BigCommerce mobile app, downloadable from the App Store or Google Play.
• Single-Page Checkout: Simplify the payment process with a single-page checkout, reducing cart abandonment and boosting conversion rates.
• Promotions and Discounts: Easily create and manage coupons, discounts, and gifts without the need for third-party integrations.
• Built-In Blog: Improve SEO and engage customers with a built-in blog.
• Product Ratings and Reviews: Gather customer feedback to enhance products and services.
• Multi-Currency Support: Accept over 100 currencies and local payment methods.
• Professional Reporting Tools: Access professional analytics and reporting tools for performance evaluation and adjustment.
• Real-Time Shipping Quotes: Provide accurate shipping costs in real-time from various carriers.
• Free Site-Wide HTTPS & SSL: Ensure website security with free HTTPS protocol, creating a safe shopping environment for customers.

Features 

The features available in the ‘Standard’ plan are consistent across all four pricing plans. However, there are some advanced features that are not included, and businesses may need to consider upgrading their plan to access these specific features. Here’s a breakdown:

• Plus:

In addition to the ‘Standard’ features, this plan offers:

• Cart abandonment features.
• Stored credit cards for future purchases.
• Customer groups and segmentation for pricing, product recommendations, targeted promotions, and personalized experiences.
• Top social & marketplace: Integration with top e-commerce platforms and social networks such as Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

• Pro:

The ‘Pro’ plan encompasses all ‘Standard’ and ‘Plus’ features, along with:

• Google customer reviews for collecting and showcasing customer feedback on Google.
• Advanced product filtering to enhance the shopping experience.
• Custom SSL integration with third-party SSL services.

• Enterprise:

Designed for large-scale enterprises, this top-tier package includes all features from the previous packages and introduces several advanced capabilities:

• Unlimited API calls, facilitating seamless data sharing between eCommerce websites and third-party applications without any limitations.
• Priority support with personalized assistance, including dedicated API support.

Pros of BigCommerce

Ease of Use

BigCommerce, designed as a SaaS platform, boasts user-friendliness catering to both tech-savvy and non-technical users. It offers a wide range of themes to facilitate swift website development and provides an array of tools for executing promotional campaigns.

Built-in features

When compared to other SaaS platforms, BigCommerce stands out for its capacity to offer a comprehensive set of built-in features and tools across its pricing plans. This results in cost savings for businesses, reducing their reliance on third-party applications and plugins, which can often incur extra expenses. Moreover, these features have been fine-tuned to boost performance and streamline the eCommerce management process.

BigCommerce also provides its users with the BigCommerce mobile app, enhancing the convenience of managing, monitoring, and updating their eCommerce websites.

Reporting & Analytics

Unlike Shopify, which offers a range of reports and analytics based on the pricing plan chosen, BigCommerce provides professional-level reporting and analytics across all its solution packages. These encompass customer reports, sales reports, financial reports, marketing reports, and more. Moreover, for businesses in need of more extensive data capabilities, BigCommerce offers a wide app library for easy integration with third-party software

Multi-store Support

BigCommerce distinguishes itself from competitors by providing multi-store support across all of its pricing plans. This feature is especially advantageous for businesses that operate multiple stores or are active in various segments, such as B2B and B2C. With the Standard plan, a business can create up to 3 stores, while the Plus and Pro plans allow for 5 and 8 stores, respectively. In contrast, Shopify, a leading SaaS platform, offers multiple store capabilities exclusively through its Shopify Plus solution, which starts at a monthly cost of $2,000.

Cost-effective platform

Using BigCommerce helps businesses save costs in various aspects such as hosting, maintenance, updates, and security. BigCommerce handles these tasks, eliminating the need for additional expenses. Regardless of the chosen pricing plan, BigCommerce doesn’t impose transaction fees, provides unlimited bandwidth and file storage without extra charges, and permits the creation of an unlimited number of staff accounts.

In addition, compared to Shopify, where businesses may incur significant costs to integrate third-party apps and utilities for enhanced functionality, BigCommerce includes essential features tailored to each plan. This integrated approach results in significantly more cost-efficient operations.

Cons of BigCommerce 

High Platform Costs

When compared to other SaaS platforms like Shopify or Squarespace, the cost of using the BigCommerce platform seems relatively higher. 

Plus, businesses must continue to pay this ongoing fee along with any charges for third-party services (if applicable) on a monthly basis, without ownership or control over the source code and system data.

On the other hand, open-source platforms such as Magento or OpenCart require businesses to make a one-time payment for both usage and service integration fees, granting them long-term ownership of the source code and system data.

Platform Dependency

Just like other SaaS eCommerce platforms in the market, BigCommerce retains ownership and control over the source code and data of the entire eCommerce website system.

In practical terms, this means that all of a business’s eCommerce data becomes closely tied to BigCommerce’s database. Therefore, if a business wishes to migrate to another platform in the future, it can only access CSV files containing a portion of its data.

Additionally, while it’s exceptionally rare, in the unlikely event that BigCommerce were to suddenly cease all operations, all data related to a business’s activities on this platform could potentially be lost.

Lack of theme

At the time of writing, BigCommerce provides users with a selection of 12 free themes and approximately 180 paid themes. This count is somewhat limited in comparison to other SaaS platforms like Wix or Squarespace.

The free themes come with modern and professional interfaces, suitable for businesses to start their eCommerce website journey. However, these themes are quite similar to each other, differing mainly in color schemes.

In reality, despite the claim of having 12 themes, users often discover only around 5-6 truly distinctive options.

The paid themes, on the other hand, come with a price tag ranging from $195 to $395, and some of them may have similar designs.

However, BigCommerce offers a significant advantage: all the free and paid themes are visually appealing and highly responsive. This means that these themes can automatically adapt their layouts to suit various screen sizes, including smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, and more.

• Related content: 10 Top-notch eCommerce Websites Using BigCommerce

For many years providing eCommerce solutions for clients across the globe, SECOMM has observed a growing trend when it comes to eCommerce website development, particularly on the BigCommerce platform. 

To gain a deeper understanding of BigCommerce and how to deploy it the right way, feel free to reach out to us or call our hotline at 02871089908 for free consultations.

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.

OpenCart and Magento have consistently been pitted against each other as open-source platforms for businesses in need of building specialized eCommerce websites, particularly for enterprises and corporations. 

So, which of these open-source eCommerce platforms, OpenCart or Magento, is the right fit for your business?

OpenCart vs Magento: Overview

What is OpenCart?

OpenCart is a freely developed open-source eCommerce platform designed in PHP. It’s favored for its user-friendliness and simplicity, boasting an easy-to-navigate admin dashboard that allows product management, promotions, order processing, and reporting without requiring technical expertise.

OpenCart offers two options for businesses:

• Free Version: Ideal for businesses looking to build their website using OpenCart’s pre-existing framework.
• OpenCart Cloud: Suited for businesses seeking the expertise of OpenCart’s professional team for website development.

As per Build With data, OpenCart has been adopted by over 400,000 websites, primarily by small to medium-sized businesses in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Brazil.

Related Reading: What is OpenCart? Key Pros and Cons of OpenCart

What is Magento?

Magento (Adobe Commerce), much like OpenCart, is an open-source eCommerce platform developed using the PHP programming language. Magento stands as the ‘pinnacle’ among all open-source eCommerce platforms due to its comprehensive control and high scalability, offering a plethora of specialized features.

At present, Magento provides three primary editions, which are:

• Open Source: This free version boasts a wealth of exceptional features, making it suitable for businesses just starting with open-source platforms.
• Adobe Commerce (on-premise): This self-hosted version is ideal for businesses seeking the readily available features of Adobe Commerce while maintaining hosting independence.
• Adobe Commerce Cloud: This cloud-hosted version caters to businesses in need of hosting services and features offered by Adobe.

According to BuildWith, Magento supports over 160,000 websites, with significant popularity among large businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Given the differences in service offerings between the paid versions of OpenCart and Magento, this SECOMM article will focus on comparing the two free versions.

Related Reading: What is Magento? Key Pros and Cons of Magento

OpenCart vs Magento: Key Similarities

License Fee

Overall, OpenCart and Magento are both open-source platforms developed using PHP. They are both robust eCommerce platforms with powerful features and a multitude of additional utilities.

The usage costs of OpenCart and Magento are quite alike, as both offer free enterprise versions that can be downloaded and installed without any charges.

Integration

Since they are open-source platforms, both possess exceptional customization capabilities for integrating third-party add-ons.

This enables businesses to effortlessly install and manage various management systems like POS, ERP, CRM, and others within a single system.

Extensions

OpenCart offers an extensive library of extensions, with approximately 13,000 extensions at your disposal. Likewise, Magento boasts a vast collection of extensions, with over 5,000 to choose from.

Both platforms enable businesses to enhance their eCommerce websites with a plethora of additional features using these extensions, eliminating the need for coding concerns.

OpenCart vs Magento: Major Differences

Admin Dashboard

OpenCart is recognized as being more user-friendly for beginners, primarily due to its intuitive interface and straightforward installation process. However, businesses should still possess a basic level of technical knowledge related to hosting, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), security upgrades, and the like.

Within the admin dashboard, users can effortlessly navigate through sections such as ‘Catalog,’ “Extensions”, “Sales”, “System”, “Reports”, and “Help”.

Magento isn’t a “playground” suited for beginners due to its intricate installation process, which demands a high level of technical expertise to set up.

While Magento 2 is considered more user-friendly than Magento 1, the admin dashboard still offers a multitude of options that can pose challenges for newcomers, especially when it comes to understanding Magento-specific terminology, resulting in a time-consuming learning curve.

User Interface

OpenCart provides around 500 themes, available in both free and paid options (ranging from $60 to $70), catering to diverse industries. This platform enables businesses to preview their website’s appearance with various themes before making a purchase. Subsequently, businesses can customize these themes according to their specific needs.

In the case of Magento, businesses have three options for creating user interfaces:

• Utilizing pre-built themes from the Magento Marketplace (ranging from $0 to $500) or theme-selling platforms like Themeforest. This choice provides cost-effective design solutions but may result in a website interface that resembles others.

• Tailoring existing themes. This option enables businesses to save costs while maintaining a unique website interface.
• Crafting a completely bespoke interface with customized themes. While this option sets a business apart from competitors, it comes with a higher price tag compared to the other two methods.

In summary, both OpenCart and Magento offer a wide selection of budget-friendly themes, but Magento allows for more extensive customization to optimize the eCommerce website’s interface.

Scalability

In terms of scalability, OpenCart is suitable for small and medium-sized business websites because it can only handle a limited number of products and transactions. On the other hand, Magento is specifically designed to manage large and complex eCommerce websites, capable of handling thousands of products and daily transactions without performance issues.

When it comes to flexibility, OpenCart provides a variety of extensions and add-ons to enhance website functionality. However, its flexibility may be somewhat constrained when dealing with intricate custom requirements. In contrast, Magento offers a higher degree of flexibility, enabling businesses to customize every aspect of their website. It boasts a comprehensive system of modules and better compatibility with third-party integrations, allowing businesses to tailor and expand their website to suit their specific needs.

Overall, Magento surpasses OpenCart in terms of scalability for eCommerce websites.

Support Community

OpenCart offers two types of support to its users:

• Community forums that enable global users to share their knowledge and experiences with OpenCart.

• Paid support services at a monthly fee of $99.

Magento provides a Help Center, but its support staff primarily focuses on Adobe Commerce, which may not fully address the needs of businesses using Open Source. However, Magento boasts a global developer community of over 13,000 individuals, making it relatively straightforward to find solutions.

Security

OpenCart doesn’t assume responsibility for the security of eCommerce websites as it operates on an open-source platform. This means that OpenCart’s code and framework are publicly available, rendering websites more susceptible to potential attacks.

In contrast, despite also being an open-source platform, Magento places a strong emphasis on security. Magento has consistently released security patches since 2015 to identify vulnerabilities. This commitment ensures that eCommerce websites built on Magento maintain a high level of security, instilling confidence in online shoppers.

Through the use of third-party tools such as Mage Report and Mage Scan, businesses can assess their security status. Additionally, Magento employs CSP (Content Security Policy), which offers a structured set of principles for restricting browser content to trusted services only. This allows browsers to determine which web tools to block and which ones to trust.

Development Cost

Even though both OpenCart and Magento are provided with free licenses, there is a significant difference in the development costs for eCommerce websites.

While Magento comes with a higher implementation cost than OpenCart, it offers a plethora of features for eCommerce websites. These include advanced search capabilities with Elasticsearch and OpenSearch, content editing tools that don’t require coding, support for categorizing a wider range of product types, and advanced shipping configuration, among others. In contrast, adding these features to OpenCart would necessitate the use of numerous extensions and increased storage resources to ensure efficient operation.

Considering the evaluations presented earlier, OpenCart proves to be a suitable choice for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking to establish their eCommerce websites. In contrast, Magento is an excellent fit for both SMEs and large corporations with specific and highly customizable eCommerce system requirements. Magento allows businesses to own a tailor-made system by either starting with a basic eCommerce website and gradually enhancing it or by creating a comprehensive system from the ground up.

With our extensive experience in implementing eCommerce solutions for clients across diverse countries, SECOMM comprehends the challenges and complexities that businesses encounter when selecting the ideal platform for constructing a professional eCommerce system.

Contact SECOMM today or call our Hotline at (02871089908) for a complimentary consultation. 

In Headless eCommerce architecture, the user interface (frontend) is separated from the business logic and database (backend), operating independently and communicating with each other through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The backend of the eCommerce system can be linked to multiple frontends to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience for customers.

This omnichannel capability has driven many businesses to adopt Headless eCommerce to adapt to market trends and attract a large customer base across all potential channels. 

However, from the planning stage to achieving the goals, it’s a long journey with several crucial steps that require dedicated efforts from businesses. Among them, selecting the right platform for Headless eCommerce development is essential. Currently, there are four prominent platforms in the market: Adobe Commerce, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce Enterprise, and Commercetools.

This article will focus on helping you as a business make the right decision by listing the selection criteria and pros and cons of each platform.

Things to Evaluate When Choosing Headless eCommerce Platform

Headless Architecture

You need to ensure that the chosen platform supports the Headless architecture, allowing the separation of the frontend user interface from the backend system. The separation provides omnichannel capabilities, enabling you to deliver seamless and consistent customer experiences across all channels  (e.g., websites, mobile devices, IoT devices, etc.).

API Capabilities

APIs are crucial for integrating with various different user interfaces. Therefore, you should seek a platform with the ability to provide customizable APIs for seamless data exchange. 

Performance & Scalability

Next, you need to consider the scalability of the platform, especially for large-scale enterprises with extensive and complex product catalogs or significant inventory management needs. A highly scalable platform can easily adjust its size based on requirements, handle high traffic, and ensure top-notch performance even during peak shopping seasons. 

The ability to integrate with third-party solutions is also crucial when selecting a platform. Third-party tools serve specific business needs and drive eCommerce efficiency. You can prioritize platforms with strong integration capabilities and compatibility with a wide range of third-party tools and services, including payment gateways, shipping, content management systems (CMS), analytics tools, and more. 

Flexibility & Customizability

Alongside performance and scalability, customization capability holds great significance for any business pursuing a platform to deploy Headless eCommerce. Evaluating the platform’s flexibility in design and user experience becomes crucial, ensuring effortless customization of frontend to meet specific business needs.

Security

Security is of utmost importance for any eCommerce platform. When choosing, you must ensure the platform adheres to standard security measures, such as secure payment PCI DSS, SSL encryption, and more.

Analytics & Reporting

Data analytics and reporting play a vital role in optimizing eCommerce operations and making informed decisions. Therefore, you should seek a platform with powerful analytics and reporting capabilities to provide comprehensive insights into customer behavior, sales effectiveness, conversion rates, and other essential metrics.

Customer Support

Opting for a Headless eCommerce development on a platform that provides valuable support resources like developer documentation, forums, and support communities, or responsive customer service directly from the platform, can bring significant benefits. You should ensure they have access to necessary assistance throughout the entire implementation process.

Total Cost of Ownership

Ultimately, the cost is a determining factor for any eCommerce business’s choice. These costs may encompass licensing fees, hosting, development, maintenance, or integration expenses with third-party services. You must assess these costs in relation to the platform’s capabilities, ensuring they align with your budget and long-term business goals.

By considering these criteria, you can select an appropriate Headless eCommerce platform that meets their business needs, provides a seamless customer experience, and supports their long-term growth objectives.

The Best 4 Platforms for Headless eCommerce Development

Magento (Adobe Commerce)

Magento is renowned as the world’s leading open-source eCommerce platform and currently ranks third in the market share among eCommerce platforms, following WooCommerce and Shopify

Magento has 2 editions:

• Magento Open Source: a free-to-use edition, but users still need to pay for hosting, domain, extensions, and development fees when hiring specialized Magento developers. 
• Adobe Commerce: a paid edition with superior eCommerce solutions, suitable for large businesses with high development and expansion needs. It includes 2 versions: Adobe Commerce on-premise and Adobe Commerce on-cloud. 

Pros

• Being open-source allows you to have complete control over the source code and infrastructure.
• With high flexibility and strong customization capabilities, it meets the needs of complex eCommerce requirements.
• Its excellent scalability is suitable for large-scale business operations.
• The powerful multi-store support enables seamless management of numerous stores across various locations from a single admin panel.
• Unified APIs and technologies across all channels enhance Omnichannel capabilities.
• From fundamental to advanced features, with a wide range of available extensions and integrations, it optimizes eCommerce functionality.
• Magento supports the creation of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) with PWA Studio features

Related Reading: What is PWA? 4 Key Benefits of Developing PWA

Cons

• Complex development, security, and maintenance processes necessitate extensive technical expertise.
• High development costs and lengthy development timelines.

Shopify Plus

Shopify stands out as a leading SaaS eCommerce platform in the market, boasting over 3.75 million active stores in 2022.

Presently, Shopify provides two main editions:

• Shopify: Including standard packages (Basic, Shopify, Advanced) with different fees and features, catering to the requirements of small and medium-sized businesses.
• Shopify Plus: A comprehensive eCommerce solution at reasonable costs, tailored for medium to large enterprises, equipped with advanced features and tools to optimize business operations. 

Pros

• The platform is designed to be user-friendly and accessible even for non-technical users.
• It boasts impressive performance and scalability, effortlessly handling high web traffic and numerous transactions.
• With the GraphQL Storefront API, you can deliver unique customer experiences across various channels like websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices.
• The Shopify App Store offers a wide range of powerful applications, extensions, and integrations exclusively tailored for Shopify Plus.
• Customizing the frontend is made simple with a user-friendly visual editor and direct code access.
• It facilitates omnichannel sales and automates eCommerce processes, resulting in operational resource savings.
• It seamlessly integrates with various third-party tools and systems, including ERP, CRM, CMS, and more.

Cons

• The customization capabilities of Shopify Plus are good, but they still cannot be compared with open-source platforms. For example, regarding payment gateways, it only allows integration with Shopify’s partner gateways such as PayPal, 2Checkout, PayDollar, Skrill, etc. Businesses aren’t permitted to integrate with other gateways outside this list. 
• The eCommerce data of businesses using Shopify Plus is locked into Shopify Plus’s database. This dependency poses risks from the provider (Shopify Plus) and limits the business’s ability to access its entire data.
• While Shopify Plus supports creating multiple stores alongside the main store, compared to Adobe Commerce, the capabilities of Shopify Plus are somewhat limited. The platform restricts the number of stores and locations businesses can add, and businesses cannot manage multiple stores within the same Shopify Plus account.
• The cost is not fixed and increases based on revenue, development, and integration needs.

Usage cost: Starts from $2,000/month and increases based on revenue.

Related Reading: What is Shopify Plus? The Pros and Cons of Shopify Plus

BigCommerce Enterprise

Similar to Shopify, BigCommerce is also one of the leading SaaS eCommerce platforms with notable features that help businesses establish a fast and easy online presence.

The BigCommerce Enterprise edition serves large-scale enterprises with various optimized business operation solutions. Among them, the BigCommerce Headless eCommerce solution stands out, enabling businesses to create a consistent customer experience along with many other supportive solutions that ensure quick website launch and easy customization.

2.3.1 Pros

• An easy-to-use and intuitive platform.
• A powerful API architecture for building custom user interface solutions to meet complex requirements.
• Create and manage multiple headless storefronts within a single dashboard.
• High scalability and fast web performance.
• Robust Headless features that can integrate with frontend frameworks (Next.js, Gatsby.js, and Nuxt.js), CMS, DXP, ORM, etc.
• Capable of handling up to 600 SKUs per product.
• Drive omnichannel sales.
• Excellent support for building PWAs

2.3.2 Cons

• Similar to Shopify Plus, the customization capabilities of BigCommerce Enterprise are good, but still cannot be compared with Open-Source platforms.
• There are limitations in controlling the backend infrastructure and accessing the database.
• The payment process still utilizes the BigCommerce domain, leading to authentication and security issues.
• High deployment costs.

Usage cost: Starts from $400/month and can go up to $20,000/month

commercetools

commercetools is a pioneering platform for Headless eCommerce worldwide. Developed based on MACH principles (Microservice-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless), Commercetools supports businesses in building and customizing eCommerce solutions tailored to their needs and their customers’ needs.

Pros

• High scalability and customization capabilities.
• Drive omnichannel sales.
• Powerful features and functionalities: category management, unified shopping cart, order management, machine learning, etc.
• Pre-built building blocks enable businesses to create their own backend structure.
• The API-first approach promotes flexibility and scalability, optimizing development time and ensuring compatibility between functionalities.
• Free 60-day trial.

Cons 

• Requires technical expertise and experience for development.
• Limited advanced features for large enterprises, requiring specific custom development.
• Smaller user base and community support compared to more established platforms, making it challenging to find assistance.
• The initial development cost with Commercetools is quite high and depends on annual revenue, integration needs, scalability, etc.

Usage cost: The pricing is not publicly available, and businesses need to contact Commercetools for further discussion. However, here are some reference points. The implementation cost starts from $300,000, and the licensing fee begins at $200,000 per year.

With extensive experience in advising platform selection and supporting eCommerce implementation for numerous businesses worldwide, SECOMM always emphasizes that choosing the right platform is the first step towards success.

Contact SECOMM or call directly at the hotline number (02871089908) now for a free consultation.

The eCommerce platforms are often considered the “backbone” of any experienced business in the market. To embark on the eCommerce journey, your business needs to choose the right eCommerce platform to build your website. 

In addition to Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, PrestaShop, etcOpenCart become a popular choice for many international SMEs. 

What is OpenCart?

OpenCart is an open-source eCommerce platform based on the PHP programming language, developed by Daniel Kerr in 1998. Currently, OpenCart offers two versions: Free and Cloud Store (Paid).

For the Cloud Store version, you have three solution options to build your eCommerce website: 

• Bronze: €59/month, for small businesses (1 CPU 2GB)
• Silver: €99/month, for medium-sized businesses (2 CPU 4GB)
• Gold: €199/month, for enterprise-level businesses (4 CPU 8GB)

According to BuiltWith, there are over 2,500 websites built on this platform. Some famous brands using OpenCart include WeLoveFine, GT Omega, Arrowfile, and Kleshna.

The Pros of Using OpenCart

Admin Dashboard

OpenCart is a user-friendly platform, even for those without technical experience. You don’t need to invest much time in training staff to manage products, orders, customer information, or other features on the website. 

Themes and Extensions

Over the years, OpenCart’s marketplace has offered more than 13,000 functional modules and ready-to-use themes. You can find suitable themes for any industry along with 3rd-party extensions, payment gateways, shipping providers, marketing tools, analytics, and reporting, which enrich your journey of building an eCommerce system. 

Flexibility

With its nature as an open-source eCommerce platform, OpenCart has the ability to be flexibly customized. Also, you can own and control the entire source code. That said, you’ll customize code components, create updates, or even develop new features within the system based on your needs.

In addition, OpenCart also has good scalability, enabling you to upgrade to multiple languages and currencies for your global expansion goals. 

No Transaction Fee

For eCommerce platforms like Shopify, and BigCommerce, operating on a licensing model. This means they charge fees for platform usage on a monthly/yearly basis. These platforms typically charge an average transaction fee of 1.5% to 2% per transaction. On the contrary, OpenCart’s Cloud Store version charges no fees. 

The Cons of Using OpenCart

Technical Skills Required

OpenCart is an open-source platform built with one of the most complex programming languages — PHP. That means, to successfully develop your own eCommerce website, you should build a skilled in-house team or collaborate with an experienced agency. 

Lack of Scalability

Although OpenCart offers many features, it may not be sufficient for you to manage and operate your complex eCommerce website. It’s different when compared to another PHP-based open-source eCommerce platform like Adobe Commerce (also known as Magento). Adobe Commerce allows you to expand from one website to multiple websites while managing them under the same system effectively. 

Hidden Costs 

It’s worth noting that OpenCart doesn’t charge transaction fees and it’s affordable cost of using OpencCart’s Cloud Store compared to other platforms. However, you need to add up the expenses for integrating various extensions. Each extension typically costs a minimum of $20 per month.

But if you want to create a comprehensive eCommerce website system, you may need at least 10 extensions. As a result, when opting for OpenCart, you should be aware of the potential hidden costs associated with these extensions. 

OpenCart, with its own set of pros and cons, is generally a suitable eCommerce platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, large-sized businesses looking for open-source eCommerce solutions may find platforms like Magento or Shopify Plus more fitting. 

Having in-depth expertise and a track record of successfully developing complex eCommerce systems on Magento, such as Laybyland (Australia, US, New Zealand), Jasnor (Australia, New Zealand), and An Nam Group (Vietnam), SECOMM understands the challenges that businesses encounter when selecting and implementing an open-source eCommerce platform.

Get in touch with SECOMM today or call directly to the hotline at 02871089908 for a free consultation on tailored solutions for your eCommerce system development needs!