Introduction
Traditional Magento is a monolithic architecture where frontend and backend are combined. It restricts Magento developers from implementing design changes, intensive customization, technology changes, user experiences, etc., because any frontend changes reflect in the backend and vice versa.
Headless Magento is a decoupled e-commerce architecture in which the frontend or user interface (UI) is separate from the backend or data management, giving Magento developers complete freedom to work separately and simultaneously on both.
Today, we are exploring the benefits of headless Magento Commerce in this post to obtain a new perception of Magento development services that a seasoned Magento development company can offer its clientele in 2024.
Benefits of Headless Magento Commerce
For a better understanding, let’s see the advantages of headless Magento Commerce from different perspectives.
Perspective #1 – Benefits of Decoupling of Frontend and Backend of Magento Commerce
Separate Design and Development:
In traditional Magento development, designers and programmers cannot work independently on the front and back ends because they are tied together. Any changes in the front end affect the back end and vice versa. They need to follow whatever the Magento platform has prescribed.
Headless Commerce is designed to decouple the front end from the back end and vice versa. So they can work independently on the front end and back end simultaneously. It saves time and effort for the Magento development team.
Magento Developers Can Choose Their Technologies:
Separation of frontend from backend and vice versa enables the Magento development team to select different frontend and backend development technologies. They can use frontend development frameworks and tools, such as React, Vue.js, Webpack, etc., to speed up the development process without knowing magneto/PHP technologies.
The same goes for the backend because APIs glue the frontend and backend, and you can use any programming technologies with their APIs. It allows Magento programmers to select appropriate technologies and bring innovations they desire. Developers will not be restricted to the Magento stack.
Quick Iterations:
In traditional Magento development, Magento programmers have to clear caches and reindex the system after each front or backend change to reflect the changes on the other side. The headless approach eliminates everything and lets programmers make quick iterations in front and back without wasting time on frequent refreshes.
Scalability:
In the traditional Magento development, the server renders frontend and backend code. In a headless setup, you can use CDN independent of the Magento server to generate content. The same happens in the case of other data and processes with independent networks or clouds. It offers you immense scalability, especially during seasonal traffic spikes in e-commerce.
Perspective #2 – Benefits of API-driven Approach in Headless Magento Commerce
In the headless approach, API bound the backend and front end together by providing API services for data exchange instead of rendering HTML, CSS, and JS on the server. Thus, through different APIs, Magento exposes data for products, carts, orders, payments, shipments, marketing, etc.
Types of APIs
For the sake of your knowledge, we have listed the APIs that headless commerce is using the most.
REST API:
It creates a REST endpoint to access different entities in the ecommerce, including products, categories, carts, orders, customers, etc. It supports various ecommerce operations, such as CRUD, search, and bulk actions, with the help of HTTPS requests.
Graph QL API:
You can use Graph QL query language instead of REST to create API and fetch multiple entities with a single call. It also helps you customize responses and get real-time updates using subscriptions.
Services APIs:
Magento extensions using SOAP and XML-RPC APIs to access different Magento services.
Asynchronous Bulk APIs:
You can optimize Magento ecommerce for exporting or importing large amounts of data from product catalogs, orders, customers, etc., in an asynchronous, non-blocking manner.
Benefits of APIs:
Agility:
The API-driven approach in headless commerce can speed up deployment and updates of apps without affecting the performance of the Magento backend.
Flexibility:
Headless Commerce provides a programming language agnostic approach to creating ecommerce applications. Thus, you can use any framework, tools, or programming language to build the applications and leverage the advantages of the latest technologies in the market.
Performance:
Traditional Magento uses the server’s power to load applications, which can deteriorate performance. Thanks to its API-driven approach, Headless Commerce never loads unnecessary page weight and assets from Magento. So, performance remains a breeze.
Productivity:
API-driven approaches in Headless Commerce save developers from using the default Magento templating system for frontend creation. It allows them to use any familiar JS-based framework to enhance the productivity of a Magento development company.
Scalability:
The decoupling of Magento enables developers to scale the application up or down at any time by tweaking APIs.
Perspective #3 – Benefits of Infinite Integrations in Headless Magento Commerce
In headless commerce, decoupled frontend and backend are glued together with APIs. This means there are immense possibilities for third-party integrations instead of solely relying on Magento extensions to integrate various services and applications with your Magento e-commerce to address your unique requirements. You will be free to select the best technologies in your favor to enrich your Magento e-commerce experience without remaining restricted to the platform.
Those various third-party integrations are:
Presentation layer:
You can use various JS frameworks and libraries to create and function the presentation layer or UI in Magento development—for instance, React, Vue, and Angular frameworks.
Payments:
Braintree, Stripe, Adyen, etc. You can integrate regionally popular payment gateways as per your choice.
Hosting:
AWS, Azure, GCP, and serverless options are available, too.
CDN:
Akamai, Cloudflare, Fastly, etc.
Marketing:
MoEngage, Optimizely, Segment, etc.
Review:
BazarVoice, PowerReviews, Yotpo, etc.
Perspective #4 – Benefits of Innovative Approaches in Headless Magento Commerce
Innovation-seeking Magento development companies often face challenges in traditional Magento development projects due to the constraints they meet on the platform when dealing with Magento/PHP technologies.
Headless Commerce eliminates these restrictions and enables Magento development services to create new features, go for immense customizations, and integrate the latest and upcoming technologies to uplift ecommerce experiences.
Other benefits of innovations are:
- Building a Magento ecommerce app becomes easy and fast using the React Native framework and shared Magento APIs.
- Integrating voice search and commands using voice recognition API.
- IoT integration and implementation is possible with Headless Commerce by connecting Raspberry Pi kiosks to Magento GraphQL.
- Continuous delivery becomes possible for the Magento storefront due to decoupling the back end from the front end.
Apart from these, Magento development services can integrate AI, AR, VR, Wearable, and other tech innovations in their Magento storefront to give next-generation ecommerce experiences.
Perspective #5 – Benefits of Maintainability in Headless Magento Commerce
Monolithic approaches in traditional Magento development lead to hardened maintainability of the application due to the following:
- In monolithic architecture, isolating the root causes of bugs becomes daunting. It could be frontend or backend. Against this, the headless approach facilitates Magento programmers in catching bugs quickly.
- Coupling frontends with backends can cause cascading side effects due to frequent changes in Magento.
- Magento developers must understand the nuances of PHP and Magento programming while dealing with traditional Magento development.
Takeaways:
Headless Commerce in the Magento platform offers immense benefits compared to traditional Magento development. Decoupling the front end from the back end and vice versa enables developers to carry a separate development approach. It lets developers select their choice of technologies, perform quick iterations, and bring rapid scalability to Magento development.
The benefits of the API-driven approach are agility, flexibility, good performance, high productivity, and scalability for the Magento development company.
Similarly, third-party integrations enable Magento designers and developers to integrate the latest and upcoming technologies seamlessly, working for elevated ecommerce experiences.