Headless & Hydrogen
Hydrogen, or a custom framework build on infrastructure you already control.
- On Oxygen or your own edge
- Hydrogen 2On Oxygen or your own edge
- Median TTFB from cache
- < 200msMedian TTFB from cache
- Preview environments
- Per PRPreview environments
Storefronts we've taken headless
Headless is the right call when you need a bespoke front end, multi-brand routing or content from systems Shopify doesn't own. We'll tell you honestly when it isn't worth it.
- Hydrogen 2 storefronts deployed to Oxygen
- Custom React Router, Remix or Next.js builds
- Storefront API and Customer Account API integration
- Streaming SSR with edge caching strategies
- CMS integration — Sanity, Contentful or metaobjects
- Preview environments per pull request
Built with
We'll tell you if headless is the wrong call
- 01
Is it worth it?
A short paid assessment against what you actually need. Plenty of stores are better served by a custom theme, and we would rather say so in week one.
- 02
Architecture & data
Storefront API, Customer Account API and whichever CMS holds the rest of the content. We document the caching strategy before writing the front end.
- 03
Build on preview infrastructure
Every pull request deploys its own URL, so review happens against a real environment rather than a screenshot.
- 04
Cutover with redirects
URL mapping, redirect tests and a rehearsed DNS switch. Search rankings are the thing most headless launches quietly lose.
They rebuilt our storefront on Hydrogen and cut time-to-first-byte by more than half. What sold us was the first conversation, where they walked us through the case for not doing it.
Nadia Whitfield — Head of Digital
Headless, answered
When your requirements fit the theme layer. Headless adds hosting, a deployment pipeline and a second codebase to maintain. If the only driver is page speed, a well-built theme usually gets you there for less.
Hydrogen when you want Shopify's defaults and Oxygen hosting. A custom React Router or Next.js build when you need multi-brand routing, a shared design system or infrastructure you already run.
It stays on Shopify. That is deliberate — the checkout is where PCI scope, fraud analysis and Shop Pay live, and rebuilding it would cost you all three.
Oxygen, Vercel or your own cloud — your choice, your accounts. We set up monitoring and alerting during the build, and a support retainer covers on-call if you want us there.
Tell us what you're building
You'll hear back from an engineer, not an account manager, within one business day. Scope, timeline and price come in writing before anything starts.