Adobe Commerce Storefront Demo

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Adobe Commerce Storefront?

Storefront is becoming the new theme for Adobe Commerce / Magento 2. It's not that... yet.

Instead of a "theme" it's actually a system, an entirely separate website and code base.

Adobe Commerce Storefront is a headless website that connects to Magento behind the scenes. It yields a basic but highly-performant customer experience that requires little technical knowledge to become proficient.

There are four unique aspects to Adobe Commerce Storefront:

• This is Adobe's second rodeo with "headless" architecture. Magento PWA was their first, and it was a disaster. It was at least five years before its time. It was as bleeding as a bleeding edge could be. The good news is Adobe is taking these learnings and has built Storefront accordingly.
• Storefront is a separate website. This separation from the Magento application increases the website's overall stability, decreases the total cost of ownership, and improves security.
• It's simple—the most straightforward theme I've ever seen. There is no need to learn crazy frameworks. Yet, it leverages modern browser features.
• Finally, Adobe Commerce Storefront is a two-in-one: You can now use Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) on your website or the innovative Document Publishing system.

Why should we consider using Adobe Commerce Storefront?

• It's the fastest theme for Adobe Commerce. It's fast because it's simple.
• This is the only theme in the marketing that has Adobe's official backing. It's here to stay.
• Headless (Composable or Modern) eCommerce is here to stay with its myriads of benefits.

But, why should we avoid considering Adobe Commerce Storefront?

• It's still in its infancy. Not all features are built yet (see below). While it hasn't been proven by even hundreds of websites, it's so simple, (and this will sound silly) that you know it will just work. All the tools used are well-proven—just not fully in this package.
• Modules will (never?) work. This new system is not designed for modules. I'm guessing there will be some extensibility, but that's not here yet.

Is this what my website will look like?

No. This is Adobe's starting point for Storefront. We will leverage our talented User Experience designer to build you a unique and beautiful look, which our highly capable dev team will bring to life on your Storefront website.

What's the transition between Luma and Storefront?

Your website will experience a complete transformation. First, it's completely different technologies: old versus new. Second, at this point, no modules work. They will have to be rebuilt.

So, this is going to be a Magento 1 to Magento 2 transition? NO!

No, it won't be—at least immediately. We can build chunks of the website and release them. For example, we can use Adobe Commerce Storefront on the product page only. All other pages are powered by Luma. This can slowly be built over time as schedule and budget allows.

Will I be forced into using Storefront?

We can't speak on behalf of Adobe, but it's likely they will eventually stop supporting Luma. Based on Adobe's caution with change, we believe such a declaration will at least five years from now, probably more.

How much would it cost to use Adobe Commerce Storefront on my website?

It's likely not as much as you would think. There are two aspects:

1. Adobe licensing fees: potentially, most of the cost is already included in your Adobe Commerce subscription.
2. Migration from your current theme: this depends on the level of design and features needed. We recommend starting with a budget of $50,000.

What is SwiftOtter most excited about with Adobe Commerce Storefront?

Luma is effectively dead. Long live the new tech stack.

We are excited about a new paradigm to answer these long-lasting challenges with Adobe Commerce. While other solutions have continued to embrace a "monolith" (all code in one, massive code package), this is one of two options that SwiftOtter recommends that separates the customer experience from the background logic.

How is splitting the customer experience from the rest of the Adobe Commerce application beneficial?

No one denies that Adobe Commerce is a massive behemoth—millions of lines of code. Because everything is tied together, it's easy for a tiny change to break a completely unrelated area. And don't get me started on 3rd-party modules: these rarely hold to breaking change standards and are easy to update but often crush entire processes.

The solution is to separate the customer experience from the rest of the code. The customer-viewable website becomes a separate website.

But doesn't this increase the overall costs? While the hosting does increase as we now host a separate website, our experience is that the total ownership cost decreases, potentially significantly. The front end is its own separately deployable and testable unit. The backend (including the admin) can be patched at any point without affecting the customer experience.

Feature Compatibility Chart