Lightning Fast E-Commerce: Remix your Shop with Shopify Hydrogen

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Ready to take a thrilling ride into the world of headless e-commerce with Shopify Hydrogen? This cutting-edge solution, built on top of Remix, is the latest and greatest way to build high-performance online store. E-commerce is more important than ever, and providing a seamless customer experience is key. But building a platform that delivers can be daunting, even for experienced developers. With Hydrogen, you'll not only find it easier to build a top-of-the-line online store, but you'll also discover how much fun it can be! From creating collections and products to implementing a shopping cart, we'll show you how Hydrogen can take your developer experience to the next level.

This talk has been presented at React Summit US 2023, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

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FAQ

Shopify Hydrogen is a new framework designed to simplify the development of headless Shopify stores. It incorporates built-in best practices and is built on top of Remix, a full-stack React framework. Hydrogen enables a component-based architecture that leverages Remix for improved performance and provides seamless integration with Shopify APIs.

Shopify Hydrogen benefits e-commerce sites by offering a flexible and customizable front-end experience through an API-driven architecture. This separation of the front-end and back-end, also known as headless commerce, results in omnichannel selling capabilities, faster time to market, improved performance leading to better SEO, and enhanced personalization and customization.

Key features of Shopify Hydrogen include a component-based architecture that improves performance, seamless integration with Shopify APIs, and the use of Remix to ensure a great developer experience by working with web standards. It also supports scalable and fast website development.

To start a project with Shopify Hydrogen, you can use the Shopify CLI. By running the command 'NPM create shopify-hydrogen@latest', you can quickly create a full-featured e-commerce website. For a basic setup, the 'template hello world' command provides a barebones repository to explore and customize.

In Shopify Hydrogen, you can build a cart by first initializing a cart instance using the create cart handler in your server.js file. You then pass this cart instance to get load context to make it globally accessible. Adding products to the cart involves using the cart form component with specified merchandise IDs and quantities. To manage actions like add or remove products from the cart, you use corresponding actions in your cart route.

Shopify Hydrogen provides an SEO component that collects data defined in the handle export. This component can be included in the head of your root file, allowing you to customize the shop name and description for SEO purposes. You can also overwrite these settings in other routes to tailor the SEO data for specific pages based on product titles and descriptions.

Yes, Shopify Hydrogen can be integrated with other tools and frameworks. While it's built specifically for Shopify stores, the Hydrogen React library includes components, hooks, and utilities that can be used with any React framework or application, such as Next.js.

Alexandra Spalato
Alexandra Spalato
27 min
15 Nov, 2023

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Video Summary and Transcription
Today's Talk is about Shopify Hydrogen and how it simplifies the development of headless Shopify stores. The Talk covers topics such as mixing Storyblok and CMS data, code and data manipulation in Hydrogen, creating products and collections, handling SEO, building a performance server-side cart, setting up and managing the cart, and displaying cart and raffle information.

1. Introduction to Shopify Hydrogen

Short description:

Hello, I'm Alessandra Sfalato, a developer relations engineer at Storyblok. Today, I will talk about how to remix your shop with Shopify Hydrogen to build a lightning-fast e-commerce. Headless commerce separates the front-end and back-end, offering advantages such as omnichannel selling, faster time to market, better performance, SEO, personalization, and customization. Shopify Hydrogen simplifies the development of headless Shopify stores, leveraging Remix for improved performance and seamless integration with Shopify APIs. We will explore creating a project, fetching and mutating data, building collections and products, handling SEO, and building a cart using Hydrogen.

Hello, I'm Alessandra Sfalato, I'm a developer relations engineer at Storyblok. I'm French, you can hear by my accent, and I live in Madrid.

So today my topic is how you can remix your shop with Shopify hydrogen in order to build a lightning fast e-commerce. So well, I have the public in front, I'm a public in front so I cannot ask you who is using already, I don't know about it, but I hope you will learn and like it with my talk.

So in the first part of the talk, we will cover the basics of e-commerce, it's important, and the second part we will introduce Shopify hydrogen and its features, and finally the big part of the talk, we will talk, we will explore the code of a custom storefront build together with Hydrogen.

So headless commerce means the separation of the front-end and the back-end, and this is achieved thanks to an API-driven architecture, which allows for a flexible and customizable front-end experience. When compared to monolithic, headless offers many advantages, omnichannel selling, faster time to market, better performance, which leads to better SEO, personalization and customization, and certainly much more. However, it may come with an increased development complexity.

So imagine an e-commerce platform that offers all the benefits of headless commerce while minimizing the development complexity. This is where Shopify Hydrogen comes in. So Shopify Hydrogen is a new framework designed to simplify the development of headless Shopify stores. It incorporates built-in best practice and it's built on top of Remix. So again, I cannot ask you who knows Remix, but for the one who doesn't know Remix, it's a full stack React frameworks, which is based on web standards and it creates a really great developer experience because you work with web standards, so it makes everything simpler. And also you can make really scalable and fast website. I didn't know it before learning Hydrogen and by learning Hydrogen, I fall in love with Remix and now it's really my go-to framework.

So it offers, well, Hydrogen, not Remix, a component-based architecture that leverages Remix for improved performance and it also provides a seamless integration with Shopify APIs. So now it's time to take a deep dive into the code of a Shopify Hydrogen project. So first we will create the project, then we will see how to fetch and mutate data in Hydrogen, how to build the collection and products, how to handle SEO and how to build a cart.

So first we use the Shopify CLI to create the project with NPM-created Shopify Hydrogen latest, and this will create for you in two minutes a full featured ecommerce website. For this session we will use the template hello world command which provides a barbone repo and so we can really explore what we are building but let's see what we obtain with this command in just two minutes.

So this is a website you get with that, so we are off. What happened, oh yes I have to launch the development so npm run dev. Okay, so now we should be good. Okay, we have mock data, so we have this home page, we have all the products, we have the single products with options, we can add them to the cart, we can apply discounts, we can check out, we can sign in, we can search. So we have really everything and we can see it in the code of the storefront here. We have all the possible routes, login, logout, recover, register, reset, addresses, orders, collections, products, search. So you can use that and customize it to make your shop or explore it to learn. But I have used the Hello World template to build this little nice website about surf. So this is the homepage, the homepage is built with Shopify and Storyblok, my favorite headless CMS. So we have here a banner that come from the CMS and here we have a product grid that comes from Shopify and here single products where the image is pulled from Shopify and these little text which is pulled from the CMS.

2. Mixing Storyblok and CMS Data

Short description:

We can mix and match Storyblok and CMS data to create storytelling. Clicking on the board link gives access to collection entries. In the performance board, collection details and products are available. Single product pages have a shop pay button for quick purchase. The cart functionality allows adding, removing, and checking out items. Personalization is implemented, showing a different homepage based on user behavior and navigation.

So we can mix and match Storyblok and the CMS data and make storytelling. I will show you after how this is built. And now if I click on the board link, I have access to my collection entries. So we have performance board and original board collection. So if I click on a collection here in the performance board I have access to the collection details with a banner here and all the products in this collection. And then I can go to my single product. The shop pay button is a buy now button and then I can add to cart and here I can see the items in my cart. And I can go to my cart. I can remove items from the cart and I can check out. And here everything is working. And if I go back to my website and to my homepage, I can see that my banner has changed. Now it's featuring performance board and is also displaying only performance board in this product grid. This is because I have implemented some personalization. So depending of the behavior of my user, and here I have navigated to the performance board, I will serve a different home page. And as I have navigated to the performance board, I assume that my user is interested in performance board. So I serve that, and here I go directly to the performance board.

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FocusReactive is a full-service headless CMS agency. The engineering company builds high-performance AI-powered marketing sites and web applications on Next.js and modern headless CMS platforms: Sanity, Payload, Storyblok, and Directus. Headquartered in London, with a Warsaw office and a distributed remote team, they work with clients across the UK, Europe, United States, Australia and beyond who have outgrown their current stack and need a website migration done without SEO loss, editorial disruption, or technical debt carried forward. ProsDeep specialisation in headless, composable architectures and website migrations from legacy or expensive SaaS CMS to open-source headless stacks.Strong engineering plus an SEO/performance mindset, including content modelling, redirects, and Core Web Vitals-friendly frontends.Dedicated enterprise migration consultancy. FocusReactive conducts a full pre-migration audit covering content architecture, SEO risk mapping, and platform fit, giving enterprise teams a clear site migration roadmap and eliminating the costly surprises that derail large-scale enterprise website CMS migration projectsConsStrategy involvement means higher project minimums than basic lift‑and‑shift vendors.PricingEarly-stage/mid-market SaaS marketing site headless migration: ~40k–130k+ USD depending on size, redesign, and integrations.2. Tribe Digital (London)Tribe Digital is a digital product company that helps startups, scale-ups, and enterprises build human-centred websites and digital products. They are not only migration agency, but also create brand strategy, UX/UI design, and full-cycle app development. They partner with visionary brands to craft best-in-class digital experiences that are as commercially driven as they are beautifully designed.ProsSaaS and B2B website migration practice with SEO and performance as explicit goals.Good fit for product-led companies moving to a modern stack (often headless) with emphasis on UX and growth.ConsLikely overkill for small, non-technical sites.No public pricing; full scoping and proposal cycle required.PricingTypical SaaS marketing site replatforming: ~20k–80k+ USD.3. Tinloof (Berlin, Germany)





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Strong fit for eCommerce brands planning a headless Shopify migration combined with a Sanity CMS migration — with demonstrated experience merging content and commerce layers into a unified headless platform without disrupting SEO performance.Design-led migration delivery with Core Web Vitals, technical SEO, and structured data treated as core migration deliverables, ensuring search visibility is maintained throughout the migration process.ConsSmall team (2–10 employees) — capacity constraints are a real consideration for larger enterprise CMS migration projects or time-sensitive migration timelinesLimited public evidence of large-scale multi-region or multi-language CMS migration projects, which may be a concern for global migration briefsPricingHeadless CMS migration services are priced at approximately $70–$150/hour based on public data.Fixed-price CMS migration projects are available for well-scoped briefs. Mid-complexity headless CMS migrations typically range from $20,000–$60,0004. Riotters (Szczecin, Poland)





Riotters is a Polish design studio and digital product agency positioning itself as a "design accelerator" for startups. Their work spans UX/UI design, product design, branding, motion design, and software development: with Payload CMS, HubSpot, and low/no-code tools listed as their primary development stack. They work across Europe and the Americas with a flat-structure, senior-led team model. Although this is not a primary CMS migration service, their design development skils shouldn't be underrated.ProsA strong design execution, guided by a structured and process-driven approach, is ideal for brands that require visual quality and in-depth user experience, along with content management system implementation.Payload CMS development listed as a core service, making them a viable option for projects where the CMS and application layer need to share a codebase.Active Dribbble presence with documented portfolio — useful for evaluating design quality before engaging.ConsDesign-led rather than engineering-led — projects where content architecture, migration methodology, and technical SEO are the primary concerns may be outside their core strengthNo public pricing and limited evidence of large-scale CMS migrations in their public case studiesPricingClutch reviews indicate project budgets ranging from under $10,000 to over $1.4 million. No standard rates published publicly5. Blazity (Warsaw, Poland)






Blazity is a  boutique agency with a Next.js focus and headless CMS migration listed among their services. Their most referenced case study involves migrating 15 WordPress sites to Contentful — a technically solid project, though one that reflects their platform preferences more than broad migration versatility.Their stack is intentionally narrow: JavaScript, Contentful, and Hygraph. That focus works well when those are already the chosen tools. If your migration involves a different CMS, a mixed stack, or platforms like Sanity, Storyblok, or Payload, the fit becomes less clear. Similarly, their boutique size means capacity is a real variable for larger or time-sensitive projects.A reasonable choice for scoped Contentful work. Less so for teams that need platform flexibility or broader migration coverage.ProsSEO preservation during migrations — full URL mapping, redirect handling, and structured data migration includedConsBoutique agency size means capacity may be limited for very large concurrent projectsMainly work with JavaScript; this agency is not a fit if your project requires a different tech stack such as PHP, Ruby, or a legacy CMSCMS platform coverage is narrower than generalist agencies — strongest with Contentful and HygraphPricingBlazity does not publish fixed pricing publicly. Rates are consistent with a senior-level European boutique agency. A discovery call is required to get a tailored estimate.6. SUNZINET digital agency (Cologne, Germany)Sunzinet is a development company from Germany. Their team is a strong fit for large-scale projects where you need a single agency to handle strategy, architecture, CMS integration, and marketing end-to-end.ProsTeam across 3 countries, serving major clients like Bosch, Siemens, Canon, Bayer, and Swarovski Optik Full-service under one roof: strategy, CRM, CMS migration, marketing, and automationConsNot suited for smaller teams or simpler projectsNo transparent pricing; requires a consultation to get a quotePricing Hourly rates are approximately $70-$150/hr (TechBehemoths), which puts them in the mid-to-premium range. They're geared toward enterprise budgets; smaller projects are likely not a good fit.7. Five Jars (New York, USA)Five Jars is a Virginia-based full-service web design and development agency that has been delivering digital solutions since 2016, specialising in CMS-based platform builds, migrations, and long-term technical support for nonprofits, arts and culture institutions, healthcare, and enterprise clients. As a certified Drupal partner with expertise across Drupal, WordPress, and headless CMS platforms, they combine strategy, UX/UI design, and engineering to build accessible, scalable digital experiences.ProsStrong track record with mission-driven and nonprofit organisations, including large YMCAs, NGOs, and cultural institutions across the US.Full-cycle service from strategy and design to development, integrations, and post-launch support — no need to juggle multiple vendors.ConsLess focused on pure headless or composable CMS setups; better suited to teams who need a trusted generalist partner than those pursuing cutting-edge Jamstack architectures.PricingCMS build or migration for mid-size sites: ~$25,000–$150,000+ USD depending on scope, integrations, and content volume.8. BitsOrchestra (Lviv, Ukraine)Bits Orchestra is a US/Europe-based web and mobile development agency founded in 2015, specialising in CMS migrations, headless CMS development, and platform modernisation for mid-size to enterprise clients across manufacturing, retail, education, and nonprofits. As a certified Kentico Bronze Partner with deep expertise in Umbraco, Contentful, Sanity, and Strapi, they are particularly known for complex legacy CMS transitions with near-zero downtime.ProsDeep specialisation in .NET-based CMS platforms (Kentico, Umbraco) and complex enterprise migrations — a strong choice when risk control and zero downtime are non-negotiable.Proven SEO-safe migration process, preserving URLs, metadata, and sitemaps with 301 mapping to protect rankings.ConsLess relevant for teams on non-.NET stacks or those looking for a lightweight, fast-turnaround headless build without complex legacy systems involved.PricingSimple CMS migrations: from ~$5,000–$15,000 USD; large-scale or enterprise migrations range significantly higher based on complexity, integrations, and content volume.9. 9thCO (Toronto, Canada)9thCO is a Toronto-based digital company that has been building cutting-edge web platforms since 2013, specialising in headless CMS development, implementation, and migration for brands across finance, retail, and B2B. As official Storyblok, Strapi, and Netlify partners, they bring deep serverless architecture expertise to deliver secure, future-ready content solutions.ProsSpecialises in headless CMS implementations and migrations (e.g., Storyblok and Strapi), with a focus on preserving SEO and performance.Good choice if you’ve already picked a headless platform and need a migration team.ConsLess relevant if you plan to stay on fully traditional platforms.Pricing Headless CMS build + migration for mid‑size sites: ~40k–150k+ USD.10. WeFrameTech (India)
WeFrameTech is a headless commerce and development company with a strong focus on migration from legacy and monolithic platforms to modern headless architectures like Strapi, Directus, and custom JAMstack setups.WeFrameTech provides structured migration strategies, content modelling redesign, API planning, and frontend alignment to ensure a smooth transition from legacy CMS to scalable headless architecture.ProsWorks across 10+ platforms including Contentful, Sanity, Strapi, Prismic, and Builder.io.Offers 10–20 hours of free development as a risk-free startConsPricing is not publicly listed — requires a discovery call to get a quotePrimarily commerce-focused, so pure content-driven CMS migrations may not be their strongest suitLimited publicly verifiable case studies for non-ecommerce projectsPricingWeFrameTech does not publish fixed pricing. Based on their published guidance, a full headless migration project — including analysis, development, and data migration — can range from $50,000 to $150,000, depending on project scope and complexity. They offer a free initial consultation and a no-commitment trial period of free development hours for new clients.11. Cocoon Agency (UK-based, remote team)
Cocoon agency is a company around headless, composable architecture, and MACH. Their pitch is digital transformation for organizations moving off legacy platforms. Engineering and UX under one roof.The overlap is real. Where they differ: Cocoon speaks in architecture abstractions — "composable ecosystems," "omnichannel delivery," "API-first decoupling." The language signals ambition but not specificity. How to Choose the Right CMS Migration ServicesNot every agency that calls itself a CMS migration partner/provider is built for the same problem. Before you shortlist anyone, check these five things:Technical stack expertise: do they know the platform you're moving to, or are they learning on your project?E-commerce experience: product data, payments, and checkout flows don't survive a careless lift-and-shiftCMS specialists vs. generic dev shops: specialists know what breaks, what compounds, and what to protectSEO-safe methodology: redirects, canonicals, ranking preservation — this should be a defined process, not improvised per projectPost-launch support: what happens at week three when something misfires? The answer tells you more than the proposal doesHeadless CMS Agencies QuickpickThis list is very general, as there is no single winner or 'best' CMS service/agency across all scenarious. Everything depends on your site architecture, team structure, and risks around SEO. With that in mind, choose:

AgencyBest ForTimezoneTech Stack / CMS FocusSEO Migration StrengthProject Size FitPricing RangeNot a Fit If
FocusReactiveSEO-safe, high-performance migrationsGMT / CET (London + Warsaw)Next.js, Sanity, Storyblok, Payload, Contentful⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Strong (redirects, CWV, architecture)Mid-market → Enterprise$40k–$130k+You need a cheap or quick lift-and-shiftTribe DigitalSaaS & product-led companiesGMT (London)Modern headless, UX-focused builds⭐⭐⭐⭐ StrongMid-market$20k–$80k+You only need backend migration (no UX work)TinloofHeadless commerce (Shopify + CMS)CET (Berlin)Sanity, Next.js, Shopify⭐⭐⭐⭐ Strong (esp. eCommerce SEO)Small → Mid$20k–$60kYou need multi-CMS flexibility or enterprise scaleRiottersDesign-heavy projectsCET (Szczecin, Poland)Payload CMS, HubSpot, low-code⭐⭐⭐ ModerateSmall → MidVaries widelySEO or migration complexity is your main concernBlazityContentful-based migrationsCET (Warsaw)Contentful, Hygraph⭐⭐⭐⭐ Strong (structured migrations)Mid-marketNot publicYou want CMS-agnostic expertiseFiveJarsFull-cycle CMS builds & migrations
EST (Arlington, VA / New York)Drupal, Wordpress⭐⭐⭐⭐ Strong (content-heavy SEO)Nonprofits, Mid-market & Enterprise$25k–$150k+You need an agency for accessible, mission-driven web platformsSUNZINETEnterprise digital transformationCET (Cologne)Full-stack (CMS + CRM + marketing)⭐⭐⭐⭐ Strong (enterprise SEO processes)Enterprise$70–$150/hrYou’re a startup or need lean executionBitsOrchestraDesign-led migrationsEST/CET (US & Europe)
Kentico, Umbraco, Contentful, Strapi⭐⭐⭐ ModerateMid → Enterprise
$20–$150kYou need zero-downtime migration from complex .NET or legacy CMS systems9thCOPlatform-specific migrationsEST (Toronto)Strapi, Netlify⭐⭐⭐⭐ StrongMid → Enterprise$40k–$150k+You’re staying on traditional CMSWeFrameTechHeadless commerce & multi-platformIST (India)Strapi, Sanity, Directus, JAMstack⭐⭐⭐ ModerateMid-market$50k–$150kYou need strong non-commerce case studiesCocoon AgencyMACH / composable architectureGMT (UK, Remote)API-first, composable stacks⭐⭐⭐ ModerateEnterpriseNot publicYou want concrete, execution-focused deliveryReady to Start Your CMS-to-CMS Migration?The most important voice in any website migration isn't your dev team's. It's the marketing operations team, the people who'll live in this system daily. Pick a platform and a partner that works for them first. The right fit depends on your workflow, not ours.

If you're planning a migration or specifically looking for a headless CMS agency, talk to CMS migration services team. Here you can also book an SEO-safe migration audit. We'll map out exactly what needs protecting before anything moves. CMS Migration Service FAQWhat happens when you migrate a website?When you run a website migration, you move key elements like domain, CMS platform, URL structure, design, and content from one setup to another. If it’s not planned properly, this can temporarily affect organic traffic, rankings, and tracking while search engines discover and re‑evaluate your new pages.Is SEO migration necessary?Yes, SEO‑led website migration services are essential if you want to keep your existing visibility, rankings, and revenue. Without structured SEO migration work (redirect mapping, content parity, technical checks), you risk broken URLs, lost authority, indexation issues, and significant drops in traffic.Can I migrate from WordPress to a headless CMS without traffic loss? You can migrate a WordPress website to a headless CMS with minimal or no lasting traffic loss if you treat it as a full SEO website migration project. That means preserving high‑value URLs where possible, implementing page‑level 301 redirects, maintaining or improving content, and launching on a fast, SEO‑friendly front end.Do I need e-commerce CMS migration services for Shopify/BigCommerce?If you are moving an e-commerce shopfront on Shopify or BigCommerce to a headless architecture, we recommend e-commerce CMS migration services. They help you migrate product data, content, URLs, and SEO signals correctly so you can benefit from faster headless experiences without sacrificing organic traffic or conversion rates.What headless CMS is the best for a marketing team with limited dev support?Storyblok is the best CMS here, for pure editorial independence out of the box. Its visual page builder lets non-technical teams build and publish pages without a developer in the loop.
Headless vs Traditional eCommerce Platforms: Introducing Commerce Layer
JSNation Live 2021JSNation Live 2021
8 min
Headless vs Traditional eCommerce Platforms: Introducing Commerce Layer
Commerce Layer is an Atlas Commerce platform that provides global shopping capabilities. It offers a range of endpoints for managing various aspects of e-commerce. Modular architecture, like the one used by Commerce Layer, offers benefits such as flexibility, scalability, security, omnichannel capabilities, and future-proofing.

Workshops on related topic

Deploying a decoupled restaurant review site to production with Strapi and Platform.sh
Node Congress 2022Node Congress 2022
134 min
Deploying a decoupled restaurant review site to production with Strapi and Platform.sh
Workshop
Shedrack Akintayo
Chad Carlson
2 authors
Node.js has become an increasingly popular language to build and deploy backend APIs. In a world of legacy CMSs adopting decoupled implementations, plenty of frameworks have sprung up to classify themselves as "headless" CMSs, designed from the start to provide an easy way to personalize content models, administer permissions and authentication, and serve a content API quickly.
Strapi, one of the leaders in this space, has recently released their v4 version of the framework, and with Platform.sh it can be deployed alongside a number of frontends within the same project, giving a drastically simplified development experience working with decoupled sites. In this workshop, we'll deploy a Strapi demo application, which has been configured to serve a restaurant review site.
Piece piece you will add database services, tests, and frontends, all within the safety of isolated development environments. At the end, each user will have a functioning decoupled site, and some greater understanding of working with decoupled sites in production.