Headless Shopify Tech Stack: The Best Tools

A Headless Shopify build has the potential and technical scope to take advantage of a broad range of technologies, particularly if you’re keen on a composable approach. With each carefully selected addition to the tech stack, the prospective build can grow further and further toward a best-in-class powerhouse that delivers artfully on each key functionality.

When you’re headless, the Shopify platform plays as big — or as little — of a part as desired. If you’re totally enamoured by the wins that Shopify helps achieve for your business, then our recommendation is to change little, and develop a tight-knit headless stack that primarily leverages Shopify but is augmented with a few select integrations. However, if you find yourself constantly up against a wall, it’s time to get radical and flesh out that stack, packing it with best-fit composable microservices that make use of the latest and greatest API-first platforms.

The Shopify platform

Obviously, the Shopify platform plays a keen role in any headless Shopify build. This is the case whether your team is totally committed to an all-out Shopify-centred headless build, or one that makes use of a variety of supporting technologies. At the very least, Shopify is going to provide essential functionality for the headless build, such as product data, backend checkout functionality, and a strong order and transaction management platform. 

How you implement Shopify into the headless build will primarily be via its Storefront API, though there are various additional APIs amongst Shopify’s library that you’ll want to make use of too, such as Customer accounts API and Admin API.

The Frontend

Headless builds are also often referred to as “decoupled” — involving a backend (of which Shopify will form a key part), which is separate from the presentation layer (front-end). When you choose to go Headless with Shopify, you’re essentially decapitating the front-end from Shopify, and taking it elsewhere: through an implementation entirely of your choosing.

You’re fairly spoilt for choice as to how you go about implementing the frontend—it could potentially be:

1. Written in any production-grade programming language;
2. Hosted on any server or cloud platform;
3. And be engineered with a specific bias toward your customer base and their shopping habits.

That said, the most common front ends for headless Shopify builds are written in JavaScript, and for good reason. JavaScript lends itself as the front end language of choice because it allows developers to build applications that are highly interactive, responsive to user actions in real time, and is well supported across the web. 

JavaScript is the gold-standard when it comes to reactive web-based experiences, because it executes on the client-side, rather than the server side (which is a job for Node.js). If your organization is looking to deliver a storefront that feels more like an immersive web app and less like a bog standard theme, JS is your gal.

Traditional languages like PHP can’t run on the client, so they deliver a static page rendered by a server, and inject interactivity on the client-side through JavaScript. Having the whole frontend build based on JavaScript significantly improves the efficiency of developers in creating web-based experiences that deliver real time responses to users’ on-site actions and behaviour. What better place to utilize this approach than e-commerce—where users want more of what they like, and value a slick experience full of meaningful interaction.

There’s an abundance of JavaScript-based frameworks that can be used for a Headless Shopify frontend, and they’re usually based on one of three core JS frameworks and libraries:

1. React
2. Vue
3. Angular

There are more frameworks available, such as Svelte and Flutter (though Flutter doesn't tend to be used for anything other than mobile apps and PWAs), though they take quite a different approach and are less-common for implementing this kind of feature-packed headless storefront. In terms of popularity for headless storefront development, React and Vue are the most commonly utilized libraries/frameworks.

At Cocoon, we’re proponents and keen fans of React. We chose React because:

• It has the largest user base of the three most popular JavaScript frameworks.
• It was built by Facebook, a company who has a solid track record of shipping interactive applications that see high levels of use.
• It has a large open source community of which contribute to a massive number of Node modules via npm (Node Package Manager).
• It scales super well, remaining lightweight even in very large applications.

React-based frameworks:

Hydrogen

Naturally, it makes sense to consider Hydrogen, as it’s Shopify’s own framework. Shopify acquired another project, Remix, which was then used as a base for the e-commerce giant’s flagship headless framework. Remix is based on React, and thus Hydrogen builds are able to make use of the stellar ecosystem that surrounds React.

Pros of using Hydrogen for a headless Shopify storefront:

• It’s built and maintained by Shopify themselves, which means it has a close coupling to the platform and how it’s naturally designed to work. If you’re heavily invested in the Shopify ecosystem and intend to present your storefront similarly to a traditional Liquid-powered store, Hydrogen’s starter kit offers a quick and efficient way to avoid reinventing the wheel.
• It’s based on React, the most popular JavaScript framework. This means that Hydrogen takes advantage of everything that React makes possible, meaning developers aren’t left short of compatible npm modules, syntax familiarity, and the regular updates that the core React platform sees. Further, it’s a lot easier to find React developers than Hydrogen developers, which means you potentially have a pretty large pool of potential frontend developers who will be technically capable of working with the stack, with a minimal learning curve. 
• It’s potentially faster to build out a Hydrogen-based headless Shopify storefront compared to using other frontend frameworks, and can expedite the process of development for a headless Shopify MVP that aims to work and behave similarly to a traditional Shopify storefront.

Some potential drawbacks to hydrogen include:

• The fact that it’s supported commercially by Shopify. While this creates plenty of positives, it means that frontends built on Hydrogen could become obsolete in a hypothetical scenario where Shopify decides to sunset it, or introduces an alternative. Additionally, it means that Hydrogen's community is relatively small, which means a limited access to peer support, which is a common feature of open source frameworks. 
• There's a smaller ecosystem of Hydrogen-specific modules/plugins/extensions
• Hydrogen has a smaller developer community than comparable JavaScript frameworks, which means it can be harder to find developers who are very familiar with the framework, and could mean slightly lengthier debugging and maintenance cycles if something goes wrong; there won't always be a readily available solution on GitHub Issues, for example.
• The pace of the framework’s development and evolution relies heavily on Shopify. Many of the most popular JavaScript frameworks, such as Next and Astro, receive continual ongoing development with releases and updates made available in quick succession. 
  
  Their open, active development also means that ecosystem-wide updates (such as support for major new releases of their dependencies) tend to be made in a relatively short period of time. As best practices adapt throughout the months and years, heavily-used frameworks like Next are usually hasty to adopt them, in the form of both major releases and preview releases. 
  
  Although Hydrogen is open source, its ongoing development and timeliness to adopt changes from the wider JavaScript ecosystem can be slower, as Shopify’s resources and focus are understandably capped according to demand. 
  
  Because headless technology is still fairly “fringe”, in that there are many more Shopify stores (and websites in general) that use a more traditional (monolithic) approach, it makes sense that Hydrogen wouldn’t be one of Shopify’s “primary” focuses. 
  
  After all, Hydrogen is sort of like a starter pack for headless builds on Shopify, rather than the company’s core offering. This all means that, while Shopify seems to remain committed to the framework years after its inception, Hydrogen sees a markedly slower pace of development or change in comparison to JavaScript juggernauts like Next.js, and the core Shopify platform itself.

NextJS

NextJS has established itself as one of the leading JavaScript frameworks, and has maintained its popularity as the de facto choice of many developers over the last 5-10 years. The framework hasn’t wavered, where others have quietened down and somewhat faded into the background. NextJS remains an increasingly popular JS framework because it’s so well rounded, and most importantly—flexible. 

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It’s less opinionated than various other frameworks in comparison, which both lowers the barrier to entry and positions it more as a toolset as opposed to a rule book. This means developers are free to architect and implement applications in the way that they deem most efficient and appropriate given the project requirements, leading to more bespoke outcomes that can deliver on nuances with relative ease. 

Next provides a broad range of tools within a single framework, such as the availability of a server layer, middleware, multiple rendering methods, and advanced routing. 

Its feature-set allows you to get more done within a single codebase that’s able to handle both client side and server side, in whatever way works best for the build. While there are compromises with any framework, Next’s are tolerable and generally less impactful because it’s so flexible and unopinionated—where something lacks you’re fairly free to imprint your own way of doing things. 

This contrasts quite a bit with other frameworks. Gatsby, for instance, requires working with GraphQL to some extent, in order to interact with its data layer, even if you were to prefer an alternative format. 

This pushes developers to source and format data in a particular way, as well as to maintain strict schema and type definitions for all data being sourced by a build from an external API. While these are all good practices, Next allows devs to implement these in their own way—however is deemed to work best given a particular project.

Astro

Astro is relatively newer in comparison to the other stalwarts we list in this resource. It’s a flexible framework that aims to improve website performance by reducing JavaScript overhead: a common cause of performance bottlenecks for core web vitals. Its usage has increase steadily, nearly tripling its active websites from 0.02% to over 0.05% of all websites using the framework between April 2024 and the same time in 2025. Source here: https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-astro

Using Integrations, Astro enables developers to build frontends using any of the most popular Javascript frameworks, including React and Preact (a lighter version of React), Vue, Svelte, and Solid.

This can potentially reduce learning curve for frontend developers familiar with these Javascript-based tools already, making it quicker and potentially cheaper to implement a headless Shopify build, as competent frontend & implementation developers will be easier to find due to Astro’s broad framework support. As a plus, Astro claims to deliver the most performant core web vital baselines of the leading JS frameworks.

Gatsby

Gatsby is one of the OG React frameworks, alongside Next. The framework has had its highs and lows. Once hailed as the framework of choice for static sites (see our guide on Headless Shopify static site generation here), it’s seen a noticeable decline in usage over the last few years.  After its acquisition by Netlify, Gatsby’s development has somewhat stalled, designating it as somewhat of an outcast among the JS community, which is notoriously fast-paced. This hasn’t been helped by Next.js' subsequent rise in popularity: Next has essentially become a "default" choice whether you’re looking to render statically, dynamically (server-side), or a combination of both.

Besides what may be a dreary state of framework development, existing Gatsby sites that have been implemented according to best practice continue to deliver a strong frontend user experience that can certainly rival that of traditional Shopify and competing frameworks.

Bonus: A note on TypeScript

As an aside, the JS frontend framework powering your build is likely to support TypeScript, in which case — we recommend using this across any JS-based elements of the codebase. Doing so will improve project structure, and ensure good maintainability and reduced incidence of bugs shipping to production. Competent dev teams will have experience in TypeScript from other projects they’ve worked on, so scoping for this is ideal!

Headless CMS

Not every headless Shopify build will make use of a headless CMS, but integrating one into the tech stack can provide a wealth of additional tooling and editorial control to your team.

For many of our builds, a carefully selected headless CMS plays a crucial part in honing the store’s administrative experience, because content and product structures can be built around your business rather than the other way around.

Shopify enforces a set structure for product information and any other content on your store, whereas a Headless CMS can be architected with the specific fields, content structure, and schema that actually makes sense for what you sell and how you sell it. 

Beyond products, a fit-for-purpose CMS will provide far more comprehensive tooling for content management than Shopify alone, which gives your team more editorial control. Custom content types, each built with specific field structures, will allow your team to build richer content-driven experiences with a tool suite that’s better suited.

A headless CMS can play a crucial part in a decoupled Shopify build—because they allow merchants and internal marketing teams to augment the storefront experience with richer content and media-centric experiences that Shopify itself doesn’t quite cater for.

The CMS can be used to augment the build, giving a home to larger sets of complex data, media-rich pages, supplementary product content, and more. Many of the popular CMSes (i.e. Sanity, Strapi, Payload) now feature dynamic preview and visual editing capabilities—these provide a richness and efficiency to the content editing workflow, and simultaneously help to reduce the learning curve for store managers and content teams.

Every headless ecom build that uses a headless CMS will differ in its implementation and to what extent the CMS plays a leading role. At Cocoon, our headless Shopify builds usually make use of a headless CMS, as this is one of the most efficient ways to address content complexity and alleviate content management inflexibility in Shopify. We’re usually tasked to solve fairly complex problems that relate quite heavily to data and content, and a designated CMS provides a place to store it, organize it, and maintain it.

Sanity

Sanity makes for a great choice, because it’s flexible, superbly powerful in its feature set, and includes robust visual editing capabilities. Sanity’s tool suite can directly complement ecommerce projects in particular, because of various features like hotspots, responsive images, image cropping and SEO field support. These are invaluable to any headless build. Sanity Connect provides a direct, 2-way sync between products in Shopify, so they can be edited via either platform with data consistency. Your developer or agency partner can implement additional schema in Sanity that extends the product entity beyond Shopify’s core fields (and without having to resort to meta fields).

Strapi


Strapi is an open source (yay!) Headless CMS, making it a great choice for highly-custom Shopify builds that require deeply nuanced backend functionality for the purposes of administration and data storage. While Strapi Cloud provides a managed solution, opting for open source means that your build won’t face resource usage limitations for the CMS outside of its hosting setup. Strapi’s built on Node and React, and connects to a traditional Postgres or MySQL database for data storage.

Directus

Directus is built on Node and Vue, and makes for a strong candidate as a headless CMS. It’s popular particularly among enterprise teams, and as a bonus—it’s open source.

Payload

Payload is an open source headless CMS that features live editing/visual preview. While the CMS can be used with any JavaScript frontend framework, it’s been marketed primarily as a CMS for Next.js. 

Headless Drupal

For legacy sites that use Drupal Commerce, implementing a headless Shopify build means you can continue to rely on (headless) Drupal for content management, and designate commerce to Shopify. In a setup like this, both backends connect to the front end purely via APIs, and your content team can continue to leverage Drupal’s resourcefulness for content, entity, and media management, while Shopify takes control of orders and checkout.

Headless Wordpress

While Wordpress isn’t traditionally considered as a headless CMS, it’s only a few plugins away from behaving like one. This option probably makes the most sense if you’re already using WordPress as part of your current stack, or as part of a replatform from WooCommerce to headless Shopify, where WordPress continues to handle content, and Shopify takes over the commerce.

Other notable mentions:

• Cosmic
• Contentful
• Hygraph
• Contento

Build and deploy

Oxygen

Oxygen is Shopify’s home-grown solution to deploying Hydrogen builds. It keeps everything under one roof, per se, rather than requiring setup of an external cloud platform for deployment of Hydrogen builds.

To note: Hydrogen can be hosted elsewhere, like Vercel, which arguably boasts a far superior suite of deployment and build management tools.

Vercel

Ahhh… One of our personal favourites! Our dev team appreciates Vercel primarily because typically, it just works. For whatever reason, Vercel seems to have things down with out-the-box framework compatibility, and their pricing structure is also clear and transparent. But beyond that, the cloud platform provides a wealth of tools such as deployment comments, live preview and password protection, which all go a long way in terms of DevOps experience. 

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Netlify

In terms of modern cloud platforms with a focus on JS and edge, Netlify is one of the OGs. In our experience, their platform is reliable and provides good compatibility with a range of frameworks. It’s new AI feature that purports to debug failing builds can be a little scratchy, but that’s barely surprising (🙈).  In our experience, it can sometimes take a little more environment tweaking to get things up and running, but the platform is otherwise reliable, and we utilize it for several of our headless Shopify builds, running on a range of different frontend frameworks.

DigitalOcean

Digital Ocean is one of our favorites, because the platform is flexible enough to provide solid hosting and deployment options for virtually every self-serviced component of a headless Shopify stack. DO’s extensive offerings range from Apps (self-contained solution to quickly deploy web apps and static storefronts with minimal configuration) to Droplets (cloud compute), and from Databases to Spaces (static file storage). 

Of course, the platform also offers much more. Combined, this potentially means a single home for all of your stack’s moving parts, or at least, anything that’s self hosted, such as the JS front end, an open source headless CMS (and its accompanying database), a static file storage bucket for media assets, and any serverless functions or microservices supporting the build. 

We’ve used DO for years at Cocoon, and it’s proven to be consistently reliable in it’s performance, and has been fairly easy to scale up in a way that’s relatively cost effective compared to some of the alternative cloud platforms. 

Railway

In and amongst other top cloud and infrastructure providers, Railway is like the gift that keeps on giving. It’s easy, it’s cheap, and it’s packed full of features that actually get used, rather than those that don’t. 

It’s most certainly a developer-first platform, so naturally comes with all the bells and whistles you’d expect, like dynamic scaling, one-click rollbacks and observability that’s actually configurable! 

Since Railway is more of a full-service cloud platform (in ways similar to Digital Ocean, but without quite as broad of an offering), it also has use potential for more than a single element of your stack—it could feasibly take on the JS frontend, a self-hosted headless CMS (along with its database), and any microservices that also form part of the build. 

AWS

You can’t go wrong with AWS; it provides perhaps the most complete suite of infrastructure and compute tools on the market. With static file storage, cloud compute, content delivery, and DNS management potentially all under one roof, your team can reduce the total number of cloud platforms involved in a headless Shopify build by deploying each component to a respective AWS offering (S3 for static files, Lambda for serverless functions, etc), for service all self-managed components of the stack. 

Shopify apps

There is definitely a place for Shopify apps as of a headless build! And contrary to popular belief, many of the best apps (the ones that drive real value to large numbers of merchants) already sport headless compatibility via their own APIs.

Recharge

A classic example is Recharge, which is both compatible with Shopify’s own subscription APIs, as well as providing its own external API that can be used to create and manage customer subscriptions. Using Recharge’s API directly is particularly useful in cases where we want to implement custom functionality on the storefront that deviates from Shopify’s standard subscription logic. 

CRO and session monitoring

While there’s a tendency to focus on development and deployment when thinking about a stack, post-launch tooling is crucial to maximizing the return of your new headless Shopify build.

After taking the new build live, your next focus will invariably be user experience: assessing how customers are interacting and engaging with the storefront, identifying points of friction, and exploring how to improve them through techniques like split testing. The first step here is to gain an understanding of user behavior, Which is why we like to implement session monitoring tools into our headless builds. 

Tools worth mentioning, all of which we've used at some point within a Headless Shopify build:

• Hotjar
• LiveSession
• FullStory
• Smartlook
• Microsoft Clarity