
What is Shopify Hydrogen?
Headless Shopify builds comprise a Javascript-based storefront that exists independently of Shopify, or rather – as its own codebase.
Hydrogen is a Javascript-based frontend framework (built atop of Remix) that aims to expedite the development of headless Shopify storefronts. Shopify released the framework with the intention of providing a quicker time-to-market for brands who wanted to rapidly build and deploy headless storefronts with Shopify. Hydrogen includes an exhaustive library of ready-made components that integrate with Shopify out the box. Utilizing Hydrogen for development of your headless storefront can kick-start the development process, negating the need to otherwise build these components from scratch.
Whether Hydrogen is the optimal solution for your specific build-out is another question, however! There's a whole world of high-performance Javascript frameworks out there today – some more opinionated than others, which can do the job either as good (or much, much better), depending on the goals of the build. You'll also probably have an easier time servicing and maintaining a non-Hydrogen storefront.
One of the challenges with Hydrogen is its relatively small community and ecosystem. Competing JS frameworks like Next.js boast huge ecosystems and have been in the game for longer. As such, it's imperative to scope out your build adequately with an agency partner who's proficient in both Shopify and Javascript (Javascript being the key driving force here – don't get it twisted!).
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