Web applications are very popular nowadays. A smooth user experience, better performance, and a faster time-to-market are just some of the benefits. However, there is now a likely better alternative on the market. According to the creators, Hyvä is an alternative to the Magento 2 theme.
- In this article, we compare Hyvä and PWA side by side, examining their benefits, differences, and key features. We will cover the following points: What is PWA and what is Hyvä?
- What are the main benefits of Hyvä?
- What are the main benefits of PWA?
- Side-by-side comparison
- What is THE right choice for YOUR business?
What is PWA and what is Hyvä?
PWA stands for Progressive Web Application and looks like a normal website in browsers, but transforms into an application on mobile devices. The list of features is excellent.
These include fast and offline operation on all operating systems and platforms when installed as an app. Although it is a relatively new technology, many companies are already using PWA for their business. AliExpress, Jumia, Alibaba, Flip, Cart, Walmart, and many others are already experiencing the benefits.
On the other hand, we have Hyvä, a Magento 2 theme. The creators describe it as a less complicated and time-saving alternative to traditional Magento 2 themes. The main goal of Hyvä is to solve Magento’s frontend issues that lead to poor performance and also to reduce development costs and time-to-market. Quite good, isn’t it?
Main benefits of Hyvä
- Reduced complexity. Hyvä is feature-rich and powerful, yet simple.
- Improved performance. Performance is the main reason why Hyvä is so highly praised, and it is the primary focus of the theme – being fast.
- Better developer experience. Hyvä provides a developer-friendly environment and has a low learning curve for developers. This ensures a faster time-to-market.
- Increased development speed. Because Hyvä is easy to use, the implementation and customization of Hyvä themes are relatively fast.
- Reduced dependencies. Hyvä aims to reduce dependencies on third-party libraries.
Main benefits of PWA
- App-like experience. In terms of usability, interaction, and navigation, PWAs offer the same user experience as native apps.
- Reliable and fast loading of web pages. By default, PWAs are more powerful than native apps due to their lean structure.
- Device independence. PWAs work on any device and any operating system.
- Single codebase. There is no need to develop and maintain a regular native mobile app for two different platforms – iOS and Android.
- PWAs can be developed with Magento PWA Studio, making them more native to Magento thanks to a native web app. Furthermore, your PWA is compatible with all upcoming Magento 2 versions.
Side-by-side comparison
Performance comparison
Website speed is crucial for customers and for a good ranking on Google. According to them, 53% of users leave a website if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. A low page speed score negatively impacts your SEO, as Google pays close attention to performance metrics when qualifying websites. You can read more about this in another article regarding the loading speed issues and solutions that Hyvä offers for every Magento 2 store.
Hyvä focuses on high performance and considers this its main advantage. The improved performance is achieved by relying on only 2 simple frameworks. As a result, all pages load much faster and provide a smooth experience, even on devices with low internet speeds.
PWAs can also achieve high performance for several reasons. The first reason is that PWAs use the browser’s cache. Therefore, you can prioritize the elements that need to be rendered before they are used.
PWAs also allow for more flexible caching of your files on client devices through programmable caching. This means that unique caching requests can be easily managed. PWAs also use Service Workers, which improves the overall user experience and increases page performance by performing a series of functions and providing offline access.
In short, PWA is fast, but Hyvä will be faster if developed correctly. And if you wish, we would be happy to help your business, so please contact us!
Functionality comparison
In terms of functionality, Hyvä is quite simple, but certainly effective. Willem Wigman, the founder, developed Hyvä to open an online store for his wife. She specialized in jewelry collections with not too many products. So his goal was to create something extremely simple yet user-friendly, and he succeeded.
The focus on minimalism and reduction of complexity became one of Hyvä’s core principles. However, Hyvä can work perfectly not only for starting e-commerce businesses and small local shops but also for medium-sized companies.
PWAs are capable of focusing on functionality without sacrificing website performance (if developed and configured correctly). Some of the other PWA features include:
- Offline mode, allowing customers to browse product catalogs even with a poor internet connection
- Add-to-home-screen functionality that allows users to install the PWA and access it easily
- Push notifications to connect with customers
Numerous studies confirm that consumers prefer apps over responsive websites. From this perspective, the app-like functionality of PWAs is superior because it allows e-commerce businesses to reach this target audience.
Scalability comparison
The market for Magento PWA-compatible extensions has grown significantly since extension providers like Amasty started releasing PWA-compatible extensions. Hyvä does not work with third-party extensions. To customize your store, Hyvä offers the Hyvä Theme Compatibility Library to make the most commonly used extensions compatible. If you want to customize your Magento 2 store, do not hesitate to contact us immediately or read more about us here first!
What is THE right choice for YOUR business?
With the various front-end solutions available for Magento 2 stores, merchants have the opportunity to choose what best fits their project. However, as these options vary greatly, this decision must be the result of careful consideration to ensure the best investment of the project budget.
For too long, the Magento ecosystem has suffered from inadequate front-end solutions that have exhausted agencies and wasted merchants’ budgets on front-end solutions that never delivered the expected return on investment.
Hyvä as the unique answer?
We are certainly a bit biased towards Hyvä because we are a Hyvä partner and contributor. For Younify, Hyvä was a saving grace when other front-end solutions failed. But especially in the early days of Hyvä, we also experienced the downsides, such as when third-party extensions were not compatible. With each passing day, the Hyvä community grows and the potential downsides – lack of compatibility with third-party extensions – diminish. Nevertheless, for certain projects, a PWA front-end may be the better approach – especially if a large budget is available.
