Many factors are responsible for making a business flourish. The most common ones are a smooth user interface, high page loading speed, better store performance, etc. Website creators have chosen Progressive Web Applications (PWA) as their sole website frontend theme for many years as it fulfilled all the business flourishing factors.

Till now, headless PWA had its monopoly in the frontend theme world, but recently a new alternative, Hyvä, has set its roots in this field and claims to be a Magento 2 alternative by its developers. Now that two storefront theme options are available for store admins with the same features and functionalities, it is getting very intimidating for them to pick the exact one for their website.

What is Website Frontend Theme?

Frontend is the part we all encounter whenever we land on a website or store page, and a website theme is a part that is the foundation of the website’s entire design. A website theme manages everything from establishing a website’s appearance to managing its functionality.

Various components are described as part of a website theme: site background, page layouts, typography, color palettes, headers and footers, and positioning and sizing. The website theme controls all these design components via a CSS stylesheet. Web developers and designers use them for developing a whole website or just a specific part of the website, as these CSS stylesheets are modifiable.

Importance of Choosing the Right Frontend Theme

Your website’s frontend reflects your business’s general appearance. Hence, a frontend theme is crucial in helping your business throughout its success journey. 

The User Experience is the one that impacts your users and influences them, and converts your casual visitors into regular customers. Conversely, if the user experience is not right, it can bring down your business if not chosen right. Therefore, it is necessary to follow highly effective UX tips to drive sales to your website.

While choosing the right frontend theme, you must always look after the quality of your website, not the content quantity it should hold onto. Your website content should not slow down your website. The rule of simplicity can help your website attract new customer impressions and sales revenue. 

What is PWA?

If you already own a Magento website or planning to have a Magento website, then you might know PWA (Progressive Web Apps). The credit for the current Magento 2 frontend solution revolution goes to PWA. 

Web applications built by utilizing the new-day web capabilities and can be used as web servers like CSS, HTML5 and JavaScript are known as Progressive Web Applications. The functionality and performance level provided by PWAs are beyond a layman’s native mobile application expectations.

What is Hyvä?

Founded in 2020, Hyvä has increasingly become the best and most preferred Magento 2 frontend theme solution. The Magento 2 Hyvä compatible themes need less coding = less complicated = less development time and cost. The need for less coding than the original LUMA theme fascinates modern-day developers and designers, making Hyvä their best substitute for headless PWA.

The main aim of Hyvä has always been to solve Magento’s most regular frontend problems caused by outdated frontend solutions like poor website performance, high development cost and time. Even though using the backend functionality like LUMA, Hyvä compatible website reaches an impressive Google PageSpeed score of 100/100.

How are Hyvä and PWA Different?

Though PWA has revolutionized the current Magento 2 frontend theme solutions, PWA themes were never considered as an answer or complete frontend theme solutions for every eCommerce platform.

PWA had complicated website-building techniques. As a result, developers tried not to choose the headless PWA and were searching for a less complicated and less time-consuming substitute for the PWA solution. The developers came up with Hyvä.

Pros of PWA

  • PWAs run on secure HTTPS servers, so the client and the server have a safe data exchange bridge.
  • Using modern technologies like service workers makes the PWAs load quickly and easily, even if the internet connection is unstable.
  • PWAs page loading time is as low as 3 seconds. Hence, fast page loading speed = low bounce rates.
  • PWAs can work offline, again, thanks to service workers.
  • With PWAs, you don’t need to update them occasionally; PWAs update themselves.

Cons of PWA

  • PWA compatibility is limited to certain devices only. PWAs don’t utilize Apple device features like Face, Touch ID, or Bluetooth.
  • Unfortunately, PWAs are not compatible with outdated browsers.
  • PWAs need some development work to meet the native apps standard.

Pros of Hyvä

  • Hyvä requires very less coding, which is the best blessing a developer can have. Also, Hyvä is built with plenty of highly adaptive frameworks, giving developers appropriate space to develop and create Hyvä compatible products.
  • Hyvä compatible themes have a page loading speed of fewer than 2 seconds, which gives us an amazing Google PageSpeed score and helps with SEO rankings.
  • Hyvä is highly flexible and can work with certain outdated modules. If you are a Magento 2 admin and want to refresh your store, there is no need to reinstall or rebuild the entire platform.
  • Magento’s PHP templating is used by Hyvä, which ensures low coding and complexity.
  • Less coding = less complexity = less development cost and time.
  • Hyvä works on all devices.

Cons of Hyvä

  • Hyvä is not an entirely open-source theme. An admin has to purchase a license costing around $1000.
  • Hyvä is not compatible with all Magento versions. To enjoy Hyvä compatible themes, you must upgrade your Magento store to the latest version.
  • Magento checkout is not available with Hyvä compatible themes currently.
  • Hyvä themes are not compatible with all third-party plugins.

Hyvä vs. PWA

Features

Hyvä themes

Progressive Web Apps Themes

Developer Friendly

 ✅ ❌

Better Speed & Performance

 ✅

✅
Security ✅

✅

SEO friendly

 ✅ ✅
All Device Compatibility ✅

✅

Low Complexity

 ✅ ❌
Rich Functionality ❌

✅

Launching Time

 4 – 6 months 2 – 6 months
Suitable for Business sizes Small to medium size

Startups to large firms

Price

 License cost + depended on projects Depended on projects
Flexibility Requires compatible modules

No modules required

1. Performance

Hyvä completely focuses on store performance which is easily achieved by depending on just 2 simple frameworks. Consequently, your website’s page loading speed increases and your customers have a smooth user interface. Hyvä uses such technologies that reduce page loading speed to 2 seconds.

PWAs also provide better website performance as it uses the browser caching system. As we know, the service workers used by PWA help the website improve its overall performance and user experience. PWA provides a page loading speed of 3 seconds. 

In conclusion, we can say that PWA is fast, but Hyvä is much faster if developed appropriately. If you are still confused about this point, you can easily reach us out and clear up your confusion.

2. Scalability

The PWA-compatible Magento extension market has been rapidly spreading its roots since extension providers started launching PWA-ready modules.

Unfortunately, Hyvä is not compatible with any of the 3rd party plugins. If you want to customize your store, you must choose Hyvä compatible themes from its library, which stores the highly used compatible extensions.

3. Functionality

Being minimal is the core principle of Hyvä. Hence, it is the perfect choice for small and medium-sized businesses. It is also suitable for websites with a minimal amount of products.

On the other hand, if PWA is configured properly, it can handle any website’s functionality without disturbing its performance.

Suppose your customer group prefers an attractive application over a responsive website. In that case, you must go for PWA as the PWA’s app-like functionality makes eCommerce businesses reach their targeted audience very easily.

4. Target Businesses

As discussed earlier, being a minimalist follower, Hyvä is the perfect choice for small and medium-sized businesses. The benefit of less coding and less development cost makes the Hyvä themes affordable for businesses starting from scratch.

Hyvä is still not compatible with Adobe commerce. Hence Hyvä is not for large firms or large eCommerce businesses. Even though being affordable, Hyvä is not improving everything because it lacks important functionality. 

PWAs are suitable for every business size, whether startups or large enterprises. Its offline feature and page loading ability, even with low/no internet connectivity, make it easier for enterprises to reach their audiences in off-beat regions.

5. Launching Time

Depending on the complexity of a project, both themes take the same amount of launching time.

The average time to market for PWAs is 2 to 6 months. For example, 2 to 3 months for a straightforward PWA that is content-based and uses a database backend; 3 to 6 months for a sophisticated PWA that includes a backend admin panel, social media features, logins, in-app purchases, and favorites; and over 6 months for a highly sophisticated PWA that has numerous integrations, tricky functionality, dedicated analytics, visualization patterns, trading options, etc.

6. Pricing

The Hyvä development services cost from €5000-25000, depending on the project. Fortunately, Hyvä presents a Hyvä license of €1000. No matter how many stores you own, buying a Hyvä license can allow you to run multiple Magento 2 stores.

Similarly, the minimum development cost of PWAs is estimated to start around $50000 for a startup project or small-sized business. All-in-all, one must remember the PWA development cost can sum up to $60000 – $70000 or even more than that. You should choose the PWA-ready products as a money-saving hack and eliminate additional development costs. 

7. Need of Experts

Whether you choose Hyvä or PWA, you will need a development agency to get you through this.

Though Hyvä’s partner network is growing rapidly, many Hyvä service providers like MageComp offer Hyvä migration services. However, the list of Hyvä service providers is not as huge as Magento service providers. But since Hyvä was founded in 2020, till now, there are 100+ companies out there available to provide Hyvä development services.

Whereas for the PWA, since its foundation in 2015, till now there are 1500+ companies spread worldwide right at our services for PWA development Services.

Factors to Consider While Choosing the Right Frontend Theme

1. Website Objective

In order to ensure that you select the proper appearance, feel, and functionality for your visitors, it is imperative that you conceptually consider the goal of your website. You want to be sure that you’re searching in the appropriate place because WordPress offers various themes that are tailored specifically to each of the functions mentioned above, along with many others.

2. Simplicity is the Key

You could come across flashy WordPress themes with lots of graphics when browsing the directory. Some designs might not be ideal for you, despite their dazzling look. Because of the user confusion and overload caused by a site with a lot of “going on,” this is the case.

A theme can impact your website’s functionality in addition to its visual components. Using a theme with lots of unnecessary features, such as inefficient image galleries or pointless widgets, can make your site take longer to load and lose visitors.

Naturally, you want your website to appear great and have all the functionality that your visitors will require, but don’t compromise usability and performance for outward flair.

3. Don’t Forget SEO

The success of your website in search results depends on search engine optimization (SEO). Your content’s excellence, consistency, and metadata optimization influence your page ranking.

When it comes to SEO, WordPress themes count. Fast-loading themes with responsive design and clean coding are excellent for SEO. You should never accept a theme that isn’t optimized, no matter what your website’s emphasis or primary goal is. Choose a theme that clarifies that it was created with SEO in mind.

4. Mobile Optimization

The mobile interface should be considered while selecting a WordPress theme for your website. More individuals now use mobile devices to browse the internet than desktop computers. Hence, it is very important to have a mobile-optimized website or a mobile app to provide your users with seamless browsing.

Performance can also be an issue for websites that haven’t been mobile-optimized. It can make a difference in terms of site traffic whether you choose a responsive theme that has already been prepared and optimized for a smartphone or tablet.

Hyvä or PWA: Which is Best for You?

Many other points must be considered while choosing the right frontend theme for your website. Hyvä and PWA have their respective pros and cons; unfortunately, there is no accurate answer to which is best for you. Ultimately, your decision and business needs will decide which is best for you.

If you are finding a solution with high page loading speed at a lower cost and less launching time, then you can go for Hyvä themes. But if you want a website that works perfectly on mobile and desktop devices, you can opt for PWA themes.

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