Introduction

There are a wide variety of front end options and technology stacks available for Mage-OS / Magento. The options span a spectrum from the default themes through to headless solutions such as Progressive Web Apps (PWA). The solutions each have their own strengths and it is probably best to discuss your own business requirements with a Mage-OS consultant to choose the appropriate solution for your specific eCommerce functional requirements and the skillset available to your implementation team. 

Themes

The classic approach to Magento front end is through the use of a theme. A theme will allow you to customise your Design, Branding, User Experience and facilitates Responsiveness as well as allowing your to use Extensions to extend the functionality of your site.

Default Themes

The default themes for Mage-OS are called Blank and Luma. Luma is often used as a starting point for theme customisation and modification.

Community resources like magepack help making it performant enough for some shops, even though it does require a fair amount of work and knowledge. https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/commerce-admin/content-design/design/themes/themes.html?lang=en 

Open Source: Yes

Cost: Free

Third Party Themes

Luma based Third Party Themes – There is a vast array of third party themes available which cover lots of design aesthetics and also may include some front end functionality bundled with the theme. They mostly use the same Magento core tech-stack as Luma.
https://marketplace.magento.com/themes.html

StoreFrame Theme is a free Luma based theme that can be used to quickly build high-quality Magento 2 stores with great performance. https://www.storeframe.io

Breeze

Breeze is a free, open-source frontend. It consists of two parts:

1. A module that replaces default JS stack with our own implementation. This part could be used on top of a custom Luma-based theme.

2. A theme created from scratch with built-in critical and deferred CSS splitting, razor sharp images for all devices, RTL support, keyboard navigation. https://breezefront.com/ 

https://breezefront.com/docs/installation
https://github.com/swissup/module-marketplace

Open Source: Yes

Cost: Free

Hyvä Themes

Hyvä is a performance orientated theme for Magento that is built using Alpine JS and Tailwind CSS. It focuses on simplicity, a great developer experience and quick time to market.
It is a frontend theme that does not use the Luma JavaScript and CSS stack, which enables superior performance. There is extensive extension vendors support for this theme with many providing out-of-the-box compatibility with Hyvä.
https://www.hyva.io/hyva-themes-license.html

Hyvä now comes with UI components https://www.hyva.io/hyva-ui.html

Open Source: No

Cost: One Time Licence cost of €1000

Headless Solutions

There are a range of Headless Solutions available for Magento.

Adobe PWA Studio

Adobe’s PWA solution is called PWA Studio https://developer.adobe.com/commerce/pwa-studio/ 

Daffodil

Daffodil – Your Friendly Ecommerce Companion!

Craft your dream store effortlessly with Daffodil, a versatile frontend framework powered by Angular and Typescript. Seamlessly embrace the magic of Angular, Redux, and Progressive Web Apps for a store that stands out.

Migrating? Daffodil’s got you covered! Switch from any platform in two simple steps: first frontend, then backend. No need for constant Magento connection – enjoy the freedom to create.

For Magento devs, Daffodil feels like home. Select only the packages you need, keeping your javascript bundles trim and tidy. For us, it’s all about merchant fit – if you’re switching, already an Angular pro, or love components, Daffodil’s your match!

Best of all? Daffodil is open source and free forever. Flexibility meets scalability with implementations catering to businesses of all sizes, starting from $100,000 up to $12,000,000. Your ecommerce journey just got brighter with Daffodil! Learn more at https://next.daff.io/

Open Source: Yes

Cost: Free for Magento Open Source, implementations cost between $100,000 up to $12,000,000.

Front-Commerce

Front-Commerce is the headless front-end that empowers merchants and developers to create customer experiences that convert, faster than ever before.
Based on PWA & MACH standards, we help brands evolve their current e-commerce platform to a headless commerce approach by integrating their Magento 1 or Magento 2 back-end with Front-Commerce’s best of breed technical stack based on React, NodeJS & GraphQL. You stay in touch with your customers and we keep all technical considerations up to date.

Open Source: No

Merchant Fit: Front-Commerce is a good fit for medium to large and enterprise size businesses that are looking to improve performance, scale their activity and innovate fast.

Cost: We propose an annual cloud subscription with a personalized all-inclusive price based on: number of websites, annual online revenue, connectors & options, traffic

GoPWA

Go PWA

GoPWA is a storefront built on Magento PWA Studio which minimizes development costs for PWA projects (by at least 1,000 hours) and increases speed results thanks to unique optimization solutions.

It includes the Magento PWA functionality and has extra 45+ features and integrations like Adyen, Mollie, Afterpay, Klevu, Algolia, and others. Requires no learning curve for developers with experience in Magento PWA.

Open Source: No

Cost: Starts from $2,198 for Open Source and $2,698 for Adobe Commerce

Graph Commerce

GraphCommerce is a headless storefront replacement for Magento 2 (PWA), that delivers a fast, improved user experience. Fully customizable (React, Next.js) and open-source.https://www.graphcommerce.org/

Open Source: Yes

Cost: Free forever for Magento Open Source

Rapidez

Rapidez

Rapidez is a free super fast headless frontend for Magento created with Laravel, Vue and Reactive Search. The default styling is done with Tailwind CSS, but you can swap this for anything else. With the power of Laravel Blade templates and renderless Vue components you’ll get a super smooth development experience! https://rapidez.io/

Open source: Yes

Cost: Free

Storefront X

Improve the customer experience of your Magento online store. Easily and with a perfect Lighthouse score. Speed up your site with free StoreFront X open-source headless PWA and increase the conversion rate. https://www.storefrontx.io/

Open source: Yes

Cost: Free

Vue Storefront

Vue Storefront, as an open source PWA frontend, designed with the headless approach, is the easiest way to make your Magento-based Commerce meet mobile-first standards. https://vuestorefront.io/pwa-for-magento

Open Source: Yes

Cost: Free for Magento Open Source

Can you recommend another Front End solution for Magento Open Source? If you have built (or used) a front end technology for Magento / Mage-OS that is not listed please let us know.

Note: Solution order is not an endorsement (currently in each section the order is: official Adobe solution followed by others alphabetically).