
Common Frustrations


Poor performance metrics (doesn’t hold up to the latest standards)
Most Adobe Commerce websites we review have Google Page Speed scores in the 30s for mobile and 50s for desktop. Considering Google indexes websites in mobile-first mode, this is a tremendous problem. Magento’s lack of out-of-the-box image optimization (especially on content pages) complicates this. Adobe Commerce uses 10-year-old technology as its default for the frontend. Unfortunately, custom theme packages revert this even further.
What would it look like to have a website that achieves frontend metrics?


Difficulty with search engine optimization
Speaking of SEO, some odd quirks can cause Google problems when it indexes your website. You have logged in hundreds of times to your website. This login path is often modified (very quickly) to add thousands or more unnecessary pages to the Google index. Multi-locale websites do not interact well with canonical tags. There is no hreflang support. Of course, you can install a module for this—and then troubleshoot why it doesn’t work as expected.
How would it affect your brand to have a website that checks every technical SEO box?


Lack of capability for content development
While Adobe Commerce has Page Builder, its capabilities are limited. It was a great idea but never took off as a content-building solution. Few module developers have added Page Builder widgets, resulting in custom-only content. Page Builder is not ideal for page speed, either. Widgets are often clunky, wasting time getting the look “just right”.
How would it affect your bounce rate and conversion rate if you are able to render amazing-looking content?


Poor WCAG compatibility
WCAG support adds to the cost of a project, and it’s an easy lever to pull to reduce the scope. Reducing WCAG-compliance scope works until you get papers stating that you’re the subject of a new lawsuit. Which means immediate legal expenses. Additionally, you will need to re-arrange your development schedule to prioritize these changes that would have been much faster to implement at the beginning.
What peace of mind would it provide knowing you are ADA-compliant—and can support visitors with disabilities?

Why do we stay where we are at?

The options


Remediation
Recommendation: Use this approach if you need an immediate remediation plan and don’t have a long-term need for speed (e.g., you will re-platform next year).
This process is about finding the problems and fixing them. Then, they are documented, fixed, tested, and released, which can be done incrementally over time.
This process typically starts with an audit, during which we thoroughly review your website to identify bottlenecks and technical SEO impediments. We also often investigate the customer journey and user experience. This is delivered back to you with estimates so you can make an easy decision.
You can expect a stable, faster website. It won’t be revolutionary, but it will be an overall improvement. Expect your total cost of ownership to be the same or a little better.

Hyva
Recommendation: Use this approach if you have a healthy budget, are happy with Adobe Commerce, and may have a limited lifespan for this platform.
Hyva (pronounced hoo-va) is a $1,000 Magento theme that has made significant progress and is considered the theme to be used on a reasonable number of new builds. It is a German-made design system that looks decent out of the box and is made for developers by developers.
Your frontend needs to be rebuilt on Hyva—there is no “one-click migration” plan. Everything that you see will be powered by a somewhat different technology. You can move to an entirely new user experience or lift/shift to the new theme, keeping everything roughly the same. Note that a lift/shift adds to the cost. Hyva has paradigms, and creating a new design around these paradigms will ease the development efforts.
The result should be Google Page Speed scores in the 90s. It isn’t easy (expensive) to keep it at 100s across the board. We see this as a cost-benefit tradeoff. 90s are well more than passing.

Composable
Recommendation: Use this approach to stay on Adobe Commerce for the foreseeable future and want a best-in-class, future-proof, search-engine-optimized website.
Composable has turned a corner in the past year. Thanks to its attainment of overall maturity, its adoption rate is skyrocketing. While it is still more expensive than other options, it has lower risk and a reasonable total cost of ownership.
Of all the options, this is critical to having a well-qualified team. A junior developer can do some pieces, but in our experience, this still requires an outsized ratio of highly experienced developers. We at SwiftOtter have made these investments into a second-to-none composable commerce team.
The result is incredible SEO, easy content management, unbelievable speed, and reasonable ongoing maintenance costs.


Replatform
Recommendation: Use this approach if you’re past the point of no return on Adobe Commerce. You’re frustrated by constant problems, and moving instead of fixing them feels best.
Moving platforms is a big project. The results are worth it, but there are many boxes to check. Cutting corners through a cheaper agency often results in extended timelines, frustrations and an inadequate end result.
The result is a clean slate on a shiny new platform. You’ll have faster, perhaps excellent, Page Speed scores. You can expect a slight dip in search results as the search engines get used to the new site layout. The long-term result is almost guaranteed to have a lower total cost of ownership.