Hyvä helps to improve performance and speed up development of new features for Magento Open Source ecommerce sites. It has become a popular choice with businesses looking for technical solutions or website redesigns.
Why is Hyvä becoming so popular?
Magento is popular for its flexibility and scalability, even for the most complex projects. However, some users have criticised front-end performance and customisation complexity. Page loading speed that affects search engine results is also a significant concern.
As a result, Hyvä quickly attracted attention because it offers less complexity, improved performance and enhanced development.
Tanya Peasgood, Head of Consultancy at Williams Commerce explains: “Adobe has stopped developing native themes like Luma and Hyvä has moved into the gap. It’s attractive to users looking for improved performance as an alternative to Adobe Experience Manager Edge Delivery Services”.
Why was Hyvä created?
Luma is a pre-installed theme in Magento Open Source. To date it’s been popular because it’s easy to set up for quick site launches with user-friendly navigation. It follows tried and tested ecommerce best practices and includes basic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) features. However, it’s regarded as part of the ongoing challenge with Magento performance.
Hyvä is a third-party theme developed in the Netherlands which focuses on easy front-end usability. Your site’s performance on all of Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics will improve with Hyvä. As a result, this helps reduce page abandonment on your ecommerce site and increase conversion rates.
Sandipan Saha, our Magento Technical Lead says: “Hyvä has moved on from the Adobe Commerce and Magento Community’s legacy themes. It uses new technologies like Alpine JS and Tailwind CSS. The popularity of Hyvä among the Community is now very high”.
Hyvä is less complex
Hyvä simplifies themes and loads in a fraction of the time of Luma. It has done away with many of the complex libraries in the Magento template canvas. Instead, it uses a newer lightweight JavaScript framework and cascading style sheet (CSS).
Less code reduces complexity so it’s also easier to work with. Improved performance enhances user experiences and leads to better SEO results.
Hyvä is cost-effective
Users buy a one-time Hyvä license for a single Magento Open Source installation. This provides themes, full access to the source code, unlimited updates, domains and store views. You won’t pay additional fees to receive new features and improvements, although customisation will be an extra cost.
To improve site speed Hyvä is a cost-effective alternative to annual subscriptions for Magento Page Speed Optimisation extensions, for example. Speed optimisation services or the costs of developing a progressive web app (PWA) also come with significant price tags.
Hyvä is fast
Hyvä uses server-side rendering (SSR) for web pages rather than rendering them in the browser. This creates an HTML file with all of the site content, ready to send to users. They don’t have to wait for JS and CSS files to load so they’ll see content more quickly. Improving your website’s page load speed enhances SEO performance to achieve higher positions on search engine results pages.
It’s also faster to customise Hyvä themes using familiar Magento frontend and backend development tools. Customisation involves just two dependencies: Alpine JS and Tailwind CSS. With these you can begin developing your theme without managing unnecessary libraries and functions. Making amendments and customisations is therefore faster and easier and less developer training is needed.
Does Hyvä have any limitations?
You need to use Magento Open Source Version 2.4 to install and use the Hyvä theme. However, Magento Version 1 no longer has technical or security support so it’s a good time to consider an update if you haven’t done that already.
Although it’s built with performance in mind, site content can affect the exceptional speed of Hyvä. If your site has hundreds of products with multiple images and moving banners, for example, page loading can slow down. If your database has grown significantly because you’re running multiple websites, this can also affect page loading time. You might need to review your behind-the-scenes processes and update your databases for the best results. However, there’s already an established Hyvä community to ask for advice to achieve optimised performance.
Hyvä isn’t compatible with some third-party extensions because it has removed so many dependencies. However, to create compatible extensions, Hyvä has partnered with some popular Magento Open Source providers. To date you can choose from over 50 compatible extensions.
Style and display issues after migration can result in some page elements, including text and images, displaying incorrectly. Design changes can also affect Hyvä’s optimisation for mobile devices, requiring further adaptations.
Work with experienced Magento and Hyvä Bronze partners
Williams Commerce has worked with many businesses using Magento Open Source. We know it well and have helped fast-growing businesses make the most of its capabilities. We are also a Hyvä Bronze Partner.
Working with Hyvä, we can help you upgrade your current site performance or streamline your new web development project. We can migrate your site’s existing hosting and front-end theme to deliver new ecommerce experiences with Hyvä.
You don’t have to change your site’s design to benefit from a Hyvä retheme and improve technical performance. Alternatively, we can provide a full user experience (UX/UI) focused discovery process to enhance your site with Hyvä. If you’re already using Hyvä we also provide support to develop new features and functionality along with custom development and integration services.
Find out how we can help you optimise Magento Open Source site performance with Hyvä. Get in touch today.
