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The Best Shopify Hydrogen Demo To Learn From

About Shopify Hydrogen Hydrogen is Shopify’s React framework for building custom storefronts, and it’s designed to help enterprises/Plus merchants extend their standard Shopify setup. Before Hydrogen, merchants had two choices: use Shopify's default ...

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The Best Shopify Hydrogen Demo To Learn From

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Table of Contents

About Shopify Hydrogen

Hydrogen is Shopify’s React framework for building custom storefronts, and it’s designed to help enterprises/Plus merchants extend their standard Shopify setup.

Before Hydrogen, merchants had two choices: use Shopify's default framework, which wasn't flexible enough, or build from scratch with other frameworks that were often too rigid and heavy. Merchants, especially Plus and Enterprises, wanted to use Shopify's tech to build something unique but didn't want to lose the perks of the built-in Shopify features. Hydrogen was Shopify’s answer to help merchants keep those perks while breaking new ground with custom designs.

With Hydrogen, Shopify Engineering team chose to create something different. It's built on dynamic, cutting-edge tech like React Server Components, making it easier and faster for developers to create and iterate without the heavy lifting typically involved. From the get-go, Hydrogen is designed to tackle the common problems merchants face—like performance issues, scaling, and creating a seamless user experience—right out of the box. Here’s the lowdown on Hydrogen and its key tech choices:

React: At its core, Hydrogen uses React to keep your UI interactive and responsive. It’s all about delivering a smooth experience to your customers no matter how complex your storefront gets.
Vite: Hydrogen integrates Vite, which steps up as a faster, more modern alternative to older bundling tools. It's chosen for its quick rebuilds and fast hot module replacement, keeping your development speedy and efficient.
Tailwind CSS: For styling, Hydrogen brings Tailwind CSS into the mix. It allows for rapid UI development with its utility-first approach, making it a breeze to apply styles directly in your markup.

Since launching the initial GitHub repo on April 1, 2021, the Hydrogen team rolled out over 1,200 pull requests and 3,000 commits. Hydrogen is now used in production at Allbirds, Atoms, Chubbies, and Shopify itself. The Hydrogen npm package is downloaded more than 70,000 times each month.

In the recent Shopify Winter 2024, Shopify announced that they'd be releasing over 20 new Hydrogen features, showing its commitment to providing a robust framework that handles the complexities of modern e-commerce so developers can focus on crafting unique user experiences without sweating the technical stuff.

Key Features of Shopify Hydrogen

Shopify Hydrogen is packed with features designed to streamline the development of high-performing, custom storefronts. Here’s a look at some of the standout features that make Hydrogen a powerful choice for developers:

React Server Components: Hydrogen utilizes React Server Components for efficient data fetching and rendering. This means your server can send HTML directly to the browser without waiting for all the JavaScript to download and execute, speeding up the initial load time and enhancing the overall user experience.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Features: Hydrogen supports advanced IDE features like TypeScript, IntelliSense, and in-IDE linting. These tools help catch errors early, suggest code completions, and ensure code quality, which is a big plus during development.
Edge Rendering: Hydrogen's architecture supports rendering at the edge, closer to the user's location. This reduces latency, improves load times, and ensures your application scales efficiently across global audiences.
SEO Optimizations: Built with SEO in mind, Hydrogen includes features like automated sitemap generation, robots.txt, and server-side rendering, which help improve the visibility of your storefront on search engines. This is crucial for driving organic traffic to your store.
Flexible Integration with Third-Party Apps: Whether you need analytics tools, customer support widgets, or any other third-party service, Hydrogen makes integration seamless. Its flexible architecture allows you to plug in various APIs and apps to enhance the functionality of your storefront without compromising on performance.

These are just some highlight features of Hydrogen, for more details, check out Hydrogen docs.

20 Shopify Hydrogen Demo

1. Shopify Official Demo on Stackblitz

2. Pilot, by Weaverse

Pilot is the first Shopify Hydrogen theme, created exclusively for Shopify Hydrogen storefront. Imagine Dawn, but instead of Shopify Liquid, it’s for Shopify Hydrogen. Check out the demo store here: Pilot.weaverse.io

With Pilot Theme, developers can:

Clone and customize Pilot for your own or your client’s headless Hydrogen store.
Use Pilot as a launching pad to build your own unique headless theme - with its own distinct identity and functionality.
Leverage Pilot's components for their own theme, or a client's theme.

This Pilot theme( and demo store, by extension) is designed with the fundamental principles that make the Dawn theme so exceptional in the first place: Performance - every aspect of Pilot was constructed with performance in mind, Accessibility - Pilot is designed for everyone, following Shopify's accessibility practices, and Design - combining flexibility and user-friendliness to eliminate technical obstacles associated with Hydrogen.

3. Naturelle, by Weavere

Check out the demo store for Naturelle here: Naturelle Demo Store.

Naturelle is the second demo store, and the second Hydrogen theme developed by Weaverse, designed exclusively for brands in Health and Beauty niche.

4. Owen, by Truestorfront

This Shopify Hydrogen demo store is powered by Owen, a premier Shopify Hydrogen theme developed by Bavaan team. Owen offers a comprehensive set of features and components tailored to the needs of headless commerce - including, but not limited to:

Conversion-focused page elements like Product Comparison, Shoppable Images, Product Bundling, Product Reviews, etc. Basically, all that merchants ask for.
Support for multiple languages and currencies. SEO-Friendly. Device-responsive and mobile-first design.
Seamless integration with Sanity and Strapi (headless CMS), Vercel (complete toolkit for Web), and Algolia (e-Commerce search trends).

5. Shopify Supply

Shopify Supply is a platform designed to celebrate and support the commerce community by collaborating with Shopify merchants to offer products like digital counters and unique clothing designs. Shopify Supply also runs on Hydrogen.

6. Linkpop

Together with Shopify Supply, Linkpop was one of the first Shopify products that were powered with Hydrogen. As they put it in their Press Release:

Dogfooding Hydrogen internally is an important part of building the framework too. Other teams at Shopify have been using Hydrogen in their own products, like Linkpop and Shopify Supply. Putting Hydrogen into production scenarios helped us uncover limitations of our APIs, leading to improvements.

7. Akva Demo Store

AKVA is a customized Hydrogen starter that presents a real-world example of how Sanity and Structured Content can elevate your custom Shopify storefronts.

This Hydrogen demo uses Sanity Connect (free on the Shopify App Store) to synchronize Shopify products and collection data with Sanity – allowing developers to easily reference products and collections – even within text.

Check out the source code for this demo and its custom studio on Github.

8. Hydrogen Demo Store, from the Hydrogen team

This is the official demo storefront for Hydrogen.

During Shopify Unite 21, Shopify Founder, Tobi Lutke also uses this demo store to showcase Hydrogen capabilities.

9. Nour Hammour

"We wanted our clients to immerse themselves into our world through beautiful storytelling. Each page has a subtle surprise that adds a spark to your shopping journey” says Zeina El Zein, Communications and Ecommerce Director at Nour Hammour.

To bring this vision to life, Nour Hammour chose Hydrogen which allowed for a fast, functional, and responsive storefront, with strong support for videos and interactive product discovery. Hydrogen also smoothed over any worries about the usual headaches of headless setups, like extra technical complexity, steep costs, or development overhead.

Read their case study here.

10. Manors Golf

Using Shopify’s headless commerce stack Hydrogen and Oxygen, with Sanity on top for CMS, Manors created a performant and engaging store, which significantly improved both customer engagement and conversions.

Learn more about their tech stack here.

11. Chubbies

Form Factory - a premier Shopify agency, powered Chubbies with Hydrogen to build a shopping experience that allowed shoppers to browse hundreds of product variants without sacrificing performance.

12. Baboon To The Moon

Before Hydrogen, The Baboon team runs an increasingly sluggish operation on a legacy Shopify theme. A complete overhaul was inevitable, and Hydrogen was the best choice.

With Shopify Hydrogen, the tech team could leverage Shopify's Oxygen hosting and in-house support - including better dev tools and better additional resources for troubleshooting. Hydrogen helps bring an enriching shopping experience to Baboon To The Moon, allowing for modularity, the ability to manage complex product variants, and customized collection pages. The upgrade also supports advanced features like bundled purchases, dynamic upselling, and scheduled content changes, all while integrating Shopify's CDN for optimized media handling

Read the full tech stack breakdown here: Baboon to the moon: Hydrogen + Sanity

13. Isle

Developed by Form Factory - a premier Shopify agency, ISLE USA leveraged Hydrogen for better performance without hindering non-technical users from continuously modifying and updating their visually rich shopping experience.

14. Drake Related

Drake is no stranger to Shopify. He founded October's Very Own (OVO) in 2011 and launched its Shopify store in 2012.

With Drake Related, Drake’s vision is to centralize all his projects, promoting brand collaborations through Shopify Collective and Shopify Hydrogen. These tools power a visually stunning digital experience and simplify partnerships and logistics, allowing the team to efficiently manage product collaborations.

15. Denim Tears

Using Shopify’s headless commerce stack - Oxygen and Hydrogen, Kamp Grizzly was able to deliver a story-infused, content-rich storefront for Denim Tears, without losing performance. They also managed to save development time by leveraging Hydrogen’s ready-to-use React components, hooks, and utilities.

As they put it in their case study:

Hot reloading made development faster, since we could instantly see their changes, and optimizing the storefront for a fast user experience was simpler with Hydrogen’s combination of caching strategies and streaming server-side rendering with Suspense. Then we could deploy to Oxygen and share their progress with Denim Tears as they worked.

Check out the full case study here:

Takeaway from the best Shopify Hydrogen Demo Stores

The Shopify Hydrogen demo stores above provide quick showcases of the capabilities and potential of Hydrogen in creating advanced, custom storefronts. Here’s what you can learn and leverage from these hydrogen demo stores:

Component Structure: The demo store is built using a series of React components that demonstrate best practices in structuring and organizing code in a Hydrogen project. You can explore components for product listings, individual product pages, carts, and checkout processes—all optimized for performance and scalability.
UI/UX Features: Hydrogen’s demo store includes a variety of user interface and user experience elements designed to enhance shopping experiences. From dynamic product grids and detailed filters to smooth transition animations, the demo provides a practical showcase of what’s possible with Hydrogen.
Data Integration: One of the core strengths of Hydrogen is its seamless integration with Shopify’s Storefront API. The demo store utilizes this to fetch real-time data about products, collections, and inventory levels. It’s a great way to see how Hydrogen handles data fetching and rendering on both server and client sides.
Customization and Flexibility: The demo store also serves as a testament to Hydrogen’s customization capabilities. You can modify the source code to see how changes affect the storefront. This is crucial for developers looking to adapt the demo to their own specific needs or to experiment with different designs and functionalities.
Performance Insights: With built-in performance optimization features like server-side rendering and edge computing, the demo store is an excellent resource for understanding how to build fast-loading, highly responsive ecommerce sites. Hydrogen’s architecture ensures that the storefront maintains high performance, even under load, which is critical for commercial success.

Setting Up a Hydrogen Project

Now that you’ve a set of Hydrogen demo stores to get inspiration from, let’s get to the real work!

Setting up a Shopify Hydrogen project is straightforward, making it easy for developers to get started with building custom storefronts. Here’s how to kick off your Hydrogen project:

Installation: Start by creating a new Hydrogen project. You can do this using Shopify's command line tool. Just run npm create @shopify/hydrogen@latest in your terminal. This command sets up a new Hydrogen project with all the necessary configurations and dependencies.
Configuration: After installation, configure your environment. This involves setting up environment variables for things like your Shopify Storefront API access. Hydrogen projects require this to fetch data directly from Shopify, which is crucial for populating your storefront with products, collections, and other commerce data.
Development Environment Setup: Hydrogen is built to work with popular development tools. Ensure your local development environment supports Node.js and has access to a good code editor like VS Code, which is highly recommended for its robust support for TypeScript and React.
Exploring Starter Templates: Hydrogen offers several starter templates that include everything from basic product listings to complex, fully-featured e-commerce setups. These templates are great for understanding how Hydrogen structures its components and for getting a jump-start on development. Or, if you want something more customized, more extravagant you can build your own Shopify Hydrogen theme using Weaverse. :)
Customization: Once your project is set up, you can start customizing your storefront. Hydrogen’s flexible component architecture allows you to tailor the user interface to meet your specific design and functionality requirements. You can add or modify components, integrate third-party services, and adjust layouts to fit your brand’s aesthetics.

By following these steps, you’ll have a solid foundation for your custom Shopify storefront. Hydrogen’s setup process helps you get started quickly and supports scaling your project as your needs grow.

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Weaverse's New Pricing Plans for 2026

Introducing Growth and Scale: Weaverse's New Pricing for 2026 As a founder, I've learned that pricing should tell a story—and that story should be about you, not us. Today, I'm excited to announce our new pricing structure: Pay-As-You-Go, Growth, and Scale. They're the result of listening closely to how our customers are building, what they need as they expand, and where we need to invest to support their ambitions. For two years, we've watched merchants build incredible headless storefronts on Weaverse. We've seen stores grow from thousands of monthly visitors to hundreds of thousands. We've seen merchants push our platform further than we expected—and we wanted our pricing to reflect that reality. Why We're Evolving Our Pricing Growth is messy. Your store might handle 50,000 monthly views today and 500,000 next year. We wanted a pricing structure without hard walls—one that lets you start lean and scale smoothly without friction. We also listened to what matters most: flexibility and support. Merchants told us that as they scale, they need more than features—they need reliability, faster response times, and room to grow without worrying about hitting limits. Our new plans directly address that feedback. By introducing PAYG, Growth, and Scale, we're creating a natural progression that matches your business stage. You can start where you need to be, grow without friction, and access the support tier that makes sense for your operation. Importantly, we're being transparent about why the plans cost what they do. Growth and Scale include substantially more infrastructure investment per customer—more capacity, faster processing, priority support—and we're pricing them to reflect that reality while staying competitive in the market. We're not the cheapest option, but we're designed to be the right option for merchants building seriously. 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Growing stores that are scaling beyond initial launch. You're handling 200K–500K monthly views and need breathing room to expand without hitting limits. Scale Plan — $299/month Scale is for established merchants running high-volume operations. You get: 3,000,000 monthly view credits — handle enterprise-level traffic without constraints Premium support — dedicated support priority and faster response times All Scale features — white-glove support, custom integrations, and advanced optimization Built for enterprise — infrastructure designed for the biggest operations Who's it for? Established merchants with high-traffic storefronts generating 500K+ monthly views. You need reliability, speed, and a team that understands your operation. Quick Comparison PlanMonthly CostView CreditsSupport LevelBest For PAYGUsage-basedPay per useStandardTesting, seasonal, variable traffic Growth$59/month500,000PriorityGrowing stores, 200K–500K views/month Scale$299/month3,000,000PremiumEnterprise, 500K+ views/month Choosing the Right Plan for Your Store The honest answer: look at your traffic and your growth trajectory. Launching or testing? Start with PAYG. Only pay for what you use, no commitment. Getting 200K–500K views monthly? Growth is your spot. Better capacity, priority support, and room to expand. Running 500K+ views or managing high-volume operations? Scale gives you the infrastructure and support to handle anything. Still not sure? Think about this: What's the cost of slowdowns or support delays if your store goes down during peak sales? What's the value of priority support when you need it? If that cost is more than the difference between plans, upgrade. FAQ Can I switch between plans later? Yes. Upgrade or downgrade anytime, and billing adjusts on your next cycle. No penalties. What are view credits? View credits represent the monthly capacity of your storefront—how many visitor interactions your site can handle. One view credit = one page view. If you exceed your monthly allotment, we don't cut you off; we just notify you and work with you on next steps. It's transparent, not punitive. How does PAYG billing work? You're charged based on actual usage at the end of each billing cycle. No monthly minimum, no wasted capacity. Great for stores with variable or unpredictable traffic. When should I switch from PAYG to Growth? When your monthly usage consistently approaches or exceeds the equivalent of Growth plan cost ($59), it makes sense to lock in the fixed rate for predictability and priority support. How do I know which plan I actually need? Check your Weaverse analytics dashboard for your typical monthly views, then match that to a plan with headroom for growth. Our support team is also here to help—just ask. Ready to Explore? If you're already with us, you're set—just keep building. If you're new to Weaverse, now's a great time to start. These plans are designed around real customer needs, and that means you can trust that what you're paying for actually matters. View Our Pricing Plans — Find the tier that fits your store. Questions? Contact Our Team — We're here to help you choose and get started. —Paul, Founder & CEO, Weaverse P.S. Thank you to every merchant building with Weaverse. Your feedback shaped this announcement. Keep building fast, beautiful, and scalable storefronts.

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export default function ProductPage({ loaderData }: Route.ComponentProps) { const { product } = loaderData; return ( <> {/* ✅ React 19: Meta tags hoist to <head> automatically */} <ProductSEO title={product.title} description={product.description} image={product.featuredImage.url} price={product.price} availability={product.availableForSale} /> {/* ✅ Structured data for Google rich snippets */} <script type="application/ld+json"> {JSON.stringify(product.jsonLd)} </script> <main> <h1>{product.title}</h1> <p>{product.price}</p> </main> </> ); } Weaverse projects run on React 19 from day one: Built-in SEO components: BlogSEO, ProductSEO, DocumentHead - SEO handled automatically Smart meta tag management: No more manual meta tag juggling OpenGraph & Twitter Cards: Social sharing works perfectly Performance improvements: React 19's automatic optimizations Better Developer Tools Smarter Project Creation: Interactive CLI guides you through setup Choose your template with detailed descriptions Clear error messages when something goes wrong Immediate next steps after creation Enhanced TypeScript Experience: Better autocomplete in your editor Clearer error messages Fewer type-related bugs Smarter IDE integration Infrastructure & Deployment Cloudflare Workers Support November brought comprehensive Cloudflare Workers deployment: Complete deployment guide in documentation Edge-first architecture support Enhanced caching at the edge Global performance improvements Hydrogen Alignment Maintained perfect alignment with Shopify Hydrogen evolution: Hydrogen 2025.1.x: Single fetch, B2B methods stabilization Hydrogen 2025.5.0-2025.7.0: React Router v7 migration Gift card removal: New cart APIs Order filtering: Enhanced customer account features @defer directive: Performance optimizations Security & Reliability Enhanced error boundaries across all components Better validation and link checking Improved content security policies Comprehensive logging and monitoring Real-time usage tracking for enterprise By The Numbers What You Got 3 Major Pilot Theme Versions: v5.0.0, v6.0.0, v7.0.0 with cumulative improvements 50+ New Features: New capabilities shipping every month Complete Documentation Rewrite: docs.weaverse.io with better search and examples Multi-Project Architecture: A/B testing and variants for everyone Speed Improvements You'll Notice 60% Faster Studio Loading: Get to work faster 91% Faster Data Connectors: Dynamic content loads instantly Smaller Bundles: Your stores load faster for customers Edge Deployment: Global performance with Cloudflare Workers Developer Experience Wins React 19 from Day One: Stay ahead of the curve Better TypeScript Support: Fewer bugs, better autocomplete Modern Documentation: Find answers faster Interactive CLI: Easier project setup Community Highlights Open Source Contributions Weaverse SDKs: Fully open source on GitHub Pilot Theme Template: Community contributions welcome Documentation: Open for improvements and corrections Issue Resolution: Active community support Developer Ecosystem Migration from Discord to Slack: Better community organization Enhanced Support Channels: Human help when you need it GitHub Discussions: Long-form technical conversations Code Examples: Real-world implementation patterns What's Next: 2026 Preview AI-Powered Development Building on the AI improvements we made in 2025: AI Code Generation: Generate components from descriptions Content Assistance: Natural language content editing for merchants Smart Suggestions: Intelligent design and optimization recommendations Automated Quality Checks: AI-powered validation and testing Advanced Commerce Features Enhanced Personalization: Dynamic content based on customer behavior Advanced Analytics: Built-in performance tracking and insights Multi-currency Optimization: Better international commerce support Subscription Management: Native subscription product support Platform Expansion New Theme Templates: More design options out of the box Component Marketplace: Share and discover custom components Integration Ecosystem: Pre-built connectors for popular services Enterprise Features: Advanced team collaboration tools Performance & Scale Edge-First Everything: Cloudflare Workers by default Instant Page Loads: Advanced caching strategies Build Optimization: Even faster development cycles Global CDN: Performance improvements worldwide Start Building The Future Every improvement from 2025 is live. Every feature is ready. Every optimization is active. Get Started Today For New Projects: npx @weaverse/cli@latest create --template=pilot For Existing Projects: Updates are live in Weaverse Studio now Migration guides available at docs.weaverse.io SDK updates via standard package manager workflows What You Get Pilot Theme v7.1.x: Complete cart features, modular architecture SDK v5.9.x: Multi-project support, enhanced caching Data Connectors: Visual data binding without code Project Variants: A/B testing and multi-market support React 19 + React Router v7: Modern foundation TailwindCSS v4: Next-generation styling Cloudflare Workers: Edge deployment ready Resources Documentation: Complete guides and API references Pilot Theme Guide: Theme customization Migration Guide: Upgrade to v5+ CLI Reference: Command-line tools GitHub: Open source SDKs and templates Slack Community: Connect with developers Support: Get help from our team Thank You To our community of developers, merchants, and partners who pushed us to build better, ship faster, and never settle for incremental when transformational was possible. 2025 was about rebuilding the foundation. 2026 is about what we build on top of it. Key Releases Timeline May 2025 Weaverse v5.0.0 - React Router v7 migration Pilot v5.0.0 - React 19 integration Complete platform architecture overhaul June 2025 TailwindCSS v4 integration for faster builds Enhanced schema validation with function-based conditions Studio improvements (documentation feedback, color picker, content management) August 2025 Complete Studio interface redesign AI assistant improvements Enterprise features (usage tracking, billing transparency) Enhanced mobile experience September 2025 Pilot v6.0.0 - Zustand state, removed forwardRef Judge.me reviews integration enhancements Combined Listings support Modular product page architecture October 2025 Data Connectors v5.5.0 - VISUAL DATA BINDING Pilot v7.0.0 - routes.ts migration New documentation platform (docs.weaverse.io) 91% performance improvement in data operations November 2025 Project Hierarchy & Variants - MULTI-PROJECT ARCHITECTURE Enhanced dashboard with variant switcher Pilot v7.1.x - cart features (discounts, gift cards, notes) Cloudflare Workers deployment guide December 2025 Platform-wide performance improvements Faster page loads and data fetching Enhanced caching for instant updates Foundation for 2026 AI features Questions about 2025 updates or planning for 2026? Reach out at support@weaverse.io or join our Slack community. The future of headless commerce isn't coming. It's here.

By Paul Phan

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Building A Blazing Fast Shopify Store: Liquid or Hydrogen?

Someone once told me, “You don’t really need your website to go that fast.” I knew what they meant. I’d just spent five seconds waiting for Song for the Mute’s homepage to load. By any standard metric, that’s slow. But I didn’t care. When you’re browsing one of the coolest brands on the internet, and you really want to buy, you’re not timing it. You’re in it. You’re immersed. You’re seeing poetry, storytelling, and fashion blending perfectly together! But most stores aren’t Song for the Mute. And if your brand doesn’t have that kind of magnetic pull yet, performance matters — a lot. Google called it out years ago in their “Milliseconds Make Millions” report. Even today, 82% of users say slow speeds affect their purchasing decisions, and a 1-second improvement in page speed can yield an extra $7,000/day for a $100k/day site. Things haven’t changed. Now, if you're using a traditional Shopify theme, built on Liquid and your site feels sluggish, your first instinct might be to install a performance app. Don’t. Most of them do more harm than good. Others might suggest going headless. I build for Shopify Hydrogen, and even I’ll say this: don’t rush. Can Shopify Liquid Perform Well? Absolutely. Shopify published their own study in late 2023 showing that Liquid storefronts outperform most ecommerce platforms in Core Web Vitals. As of September 2023, 59.5% of Shopify sites passed all CWV thresholds, a stat that continues to climb. Even large-scale merchants like Rothy’s, Rad Power Bikes, and Dollar Shave Club use Liquid and still hit performance benchmarks. Surprisingly, Liquid even outperforms most headless implementations. Shopify found that many SSR frameworks — the ones powering most headless setups — had fewer sites passing Core Web Vitals compared to Liquid. Hydrogen ranked second, but there’s still a gap. So why invest millions in building Hydrogen? Just why? Hydrogen vs Liquid/Shopify Themes A Rebuttal Against Liquid First, I have to say that it might be hard to compare apples to apples in this case, mainly because the data in Shopify’s benchmark focuses on real storefronts using Hydrogen. Many of these early adopters built custom experiences without performance best practices. In contrast, Liquid storefronts benefit from: Years of optimization by Shopify's core teams Default themes like Dawn that are tightly optimized A templating model that constrains performance pitfalls Hydrogen, on the other hand, gives full freedom. Yes, this freedom cuts both ways; it brings performance potential and risk of poor implementation. Hydrogen storefronts can match or exceed Liquid performance when built well. Shopify’s own documentation even notes: “Some routes in the Hydrogen demo store template saw their load time cut in half” after optimizing GraphQL queries. Hydrogen is built on React Server Components (RSC) and uses Vite for ultra-fast development. Shopify chose this stack specifically because: RSC reduces client JS bundle size significantly Pages stream in progressively with lower Time to First Byte (TTFB) Data fetching is done on the server, not in the client render phase You get full control. You also get full responsibility. That’s why some Hydrogen stores load in half the time, and others fall flat. When Should You Consider Hydrogen? Page speed shouldn’t be the only factor in deciding between Shopify Hydrogen and Liquid. The real choice comes down to how much control you need over your storefront experience. If you’re planning to run A/B tests, personalize content, or build dynamic user interfaces, you’ll hit the limits of Liquid fast. Hydrogen is built for that kind of flexibility. It’s designed for brands that want to iterate quickly, experiment often, and optimize every touchpoint. On the other hand, Liquid works well for stores that prioritize simplicity and stability. Its guardrails are a strength if your store setup is relatively fixed, maybe with just a few campaign landing pages here and there. Use Hydrogen if: Your store has 500+ SKUs or 100K+ visits/month, and you’re seeing speed decline. You need to launch experiences that your theme can’t handle: multi-currency PWA, AR tools, immersive UIs. Your team (or agency) is fluent in React and headless workflows Stick with Liquid if: You’re validating a new product or category All your needs are covered within the theme editor, and your site already performs well You don’t have the engineering support to maintain a custom frontend The TL;DR In short, Liquid gives you structure. Hydrogen gives you freedom. Choose based on how far you plan to push your storefront. How To Build Hydrogen Storefronts Faster? One of the biggest reasons developers hesitate to go headless is that it breaks the visual editing experience. The Shopify Theme Editor disappears. Content teams are locked out. Everything becomes a Jira ticket. Weaverse fixes that. With Weaverse Hydrogen, developers can build Hydrogen themes and components via an SDK, expose them in a familiar drag-and-drop editor, just like Shopify Theme Editor, and let content teams reuse, remix, and publish without touching code. And it's only getting easier. With Weaverse AI, the gap between idea and execution shrinks dramatically. Developers will soon be able to turn Figma design into Hydrogen landing pages using Weaverse and Figma MCP. Merchants will soon be able to edit their Hydrogen storefronts using a natural language interface. If you’re interested in Weaverse AI, let me know here, and I’ll reach out once it’s ready!

By Paul Phan

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