5 Reasons Hyvä Might Not Be Right for Your Magento Store in 2025

From custom module complexity to better alternatives, this guide breaks down when Hyvä might not be the best move for your Magento store.

Hyvä has taken the Magento ecosystem by storm—and for good reason. It’s fast, modern, and far more maintainable than Luma.

But just because Hyvä is the popular choice doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for everyone.

At SwiftOtter, we’ve worked with merchants who’ve benefited tremendously from switching to Hyvä—but we’ve also worked with those who would have wasted tens of thousands of dollars and months of time if they had moved forward too quickly.

This episode of the eCom Buzz covers five important signals that should make you pause before signing that Hyvä contract. These aren’t “gotchas”—they’re practical considerations that every Magento merchant should evaluate first.

1. Your Magento Foundation Is Shaky

Let’s be blunt: Hyvä is a frontend theme. It won’t fix a broken backend.

If your store is plagued by slow page loads, weird error messages, random crashes, or bugs that only appear during full moons, Hyvä isn’t going to solve that. It’ll just make the frontend look better while the real issues remain under the surface.

In fact, putting Hyvä on top of a poorly configured Magento setup is like putting a fresh coat of paint on a car with a blown engine. It might look better, but it won’t drive any smoother.

Success with Hyvä assumes that your Magento installation is already stable, well-optimized, and functioning reliably. If it’s not, you’ll just be adding cost and complexity without meaningful improvements.

Fix your foundation first. Then—and only then—should you consider a frontend upgrade.

2. You’re Only Considering Hyvä for Speed

This is a big one.

Hyvä is known for performance gains. And yes, when implemented properly, it can absolutely deliver strong Core Web Vitals scores and faster load times.

But here’s the truth: you don’t need Hyvä to make Magento fast.

We’ve studied thousands of Magento sites—including many using Luma—and found that performance often comes down to other factors:

Hosting and infrastructure
Extension bloat
Customizations and frontend complexity
Lack of caching or CDN
Misconfigured assets and scripts

Hyvä can help, but if performance is your only reason for switching, there may be cheaper and faster fixes that don’t require a theme overhaul.

That said, if you’re also interested in Hyvä’s CMS tools, admin enhancements, or developer-friendliness—then it’s worth considering. But don’t treat it as a silver bullet for speed.

3. Your Adobe Commerce License Renewal Is Coming Up

If your Adobe Commerce license is up for renewal soon—or if you’re on open source and planning long-term—now is the time to rethink your entire stack.

Many merchants spend 50–75% of a full platform migration just moving to Hyvä. So before you invest that time and money, ask yourself:

Is Adobe Commerce still the best fit?
Have you considered SaaS options like Shopify, BigCommerce, or Adobe Commerce as a Service?
Do you want to continue investing in open-source architecture, with its known risks and maintenance costs?

Technology has come a long way. Today’s SaaS platforms are far more flexible than they were five years ago. The “black box” argument doesn’t hold the same weight when nearly everything is API-driven and extensible.

You might still land on Hyvä + Magento as your best move—but you owe it to your business to evaluate all your options.

4. You Have a Lot of Custom Modules

Hyvä made a major effort to ensure compatibility with popular third-party extensions—but it can’t account for your custom modules.

If your codebase includes custom-built features, altered vendor extensions, or heavily modified frontend components, those changes will require rework. And that rework can be time-consuming, expensive, and easy to underestimate.

We’ve seen agencies underbid Hyvä implementations by ignoring custom module complexity—only to come back later asking for more money when problems arise. By then, you’re too far in to pull out.

Before you commit, ask your dev team or partner:

How many custom modules will require refactoring?
Are any modules using frontend logic that depends on Luma or Blank?
Which modules can be deprecated before the rebuild?

If the list is long—or the costs are high—it might be smarter to revisit your platform strategy entirely.

5. Adobe Just Released Their Own Hyvä Alternative

This one is new—and it’s a big deal.

Adobe has launched a new product called Adobe Commerce Optimizer—essentially, their own enterprise-friendly answer to Hyvä.

It includes a headless front end that integrates deeply with Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics, Firefly, and more. And unlike traditional Magento frontends, it’s built from the ground up for scalability and modern marketing workflows.

This Optimizer product is Adobe’s first real step toward offering a Hyva-like experience for Commerce as a Service—meaning:

No more patching
No more brittle modules
Seamless upgrades
Built-in analytics and personalization tools

It’s a compelling option, especially for mid-to-large enterprises who want Magento’s power without its maintenance burden. And the pricing? Surprisingly reasonable—especially compared to traditional Adobe Commerce licensing.

If you’re even remotely enterprise-sized, it’s worth a serious look.

Final Thoughts: Should You Avoid Hyvä?

No. That’s not what we’re saying.

Hyvä is a fantastic solution for the right store—but it’s not a magic fix, and it’s not always the best first move.

If you’re working with a shaky foundation, buried in custom modules, chasing performance gains in the wrong place, or nearing a platform crossroads, take a step back. Consider your full ecosystem. Run the numbers. Explore the options.

We created this guide—and the companion video—to help you do exactly that.

Not Sure If Hyvä Is Right for You?

We’ve helped merchants weigh the pros and cons of Hyvä, headless, SaaS, and more. Drop your info below and we’ll help you think it through—no pressure, just perspective.