- Hyvä, Magento
The license is free, but the migration isn’t: what “ Hyvä ” means for your Magento online store
Since November 2025, the Hyvä theme has been free and open source, under the OSL3 and AFL3 licenses, which also power Magento Open Source. The post announcing this removed the main barrier that sometimes causes people to drop out: the licensing costs.
Replacing a front end is like renovating your storefront, and the storefront is not the warehouse. This article explains what Hyvä solves, what it costs to develop a new front end, and how long it takes.
What exactly is Hyvä ?
Hyvä is a front end for Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce that replaces the standard Luma front end. It was built by the Dutch company Hyvä Themes and uses Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS instead of the Knockout and RequireJS layers on which Luma runs.
Hyvä It affects only the layer that your visitor sees. The catalog, prices, inventory, order processing, and your ERP integration remain exactly where they were. That is why a Hyvä project takes less time than a replatforming effort.
The difference lies in what the browser has to load. On the standard Magento front end, a category page can easily load more than two hundred separate JavaScript and CSS files. On Hyvä , there are only two. This significantly improves performance.
Why Choose a Hyvä Theme?
The primary reason for choosing Hyvä is measurable speed on mobile devices. We set up Luma and Hyvä side by side on two identical DigitalOcean servers running Magento 2.4.4-p2 in production mode, and measured the difference using WebPageTest and Lighthouse.
In that test, a category page loaded in 7 seconds on Luma and in 1.4 seconds on Hyvä , as measured on an iPhone X. The search results page went from 6.4 to 1.7 seconds.
The page size dropped from 0.9 MB to 0.15 MB, and the number of HTTP requests fell from 256 to 11. That is the essence of the mechanism: there is simply less to download and less to process before a visitor sees anything.
On a real online store with marketing scripts, a cookie banner, a review widget, and a chat feature, that third-party layer eats into a portion of the profit.
How much does Hyvä cost now that the license is free?
A switch to Hyvä typically costs 10,000 to 15,000 euros for development, while the license for the theme itself is free.
The real costs come down to four things. Each of your modules must work on the new front end.
Your design must be rebuilt from scratch for each page type. B2B screens such as quote requests, approval workflows, and customer-specific prices are custom features and aren’t automatically included. And your deployment process will include an additional Node and Tailwind step.
The closer you stick to the standard, the cheaper the next three years will be. You’ll have to pay again for every piece of custom code you add on top of Hyvä with every upgrade.
Also keep in mind that an outdated Magento version will need to be updated first. If you’re still running a version that no longer receives security patches, that’s a separate project that must be addressed before working on the front end.
How long does a switch to Hyvä
A Hyvä migration takes an average of 6 to 12 weeks. Where you fall within that range depends on three factors: the number of custom templates, the number of external modules that affect the front end, and how much of your store consists of B2B functionality.
A B2C store with a standard catalog and a handful of modules is at the lower end of the spectrum. A wholesale business with customer-specific prices, volume discounts, corporate accounts with a discounted pricing structure, and a quote workflow is at the upper end—and sometimes even beyond.
The weeks people tend to overlook are the final ones. Replacing a front end means every page must be tested—even the pages no one ever visits except for the customer who checks out right there. In addition, time must be set aside for populating and verifying content. This is a good time to tackle your content right away.
What is the difference between Hyvä Theme, Hyvä Checkout, and Hyvä Commerce?
Hyvä It’s not a single product but four, and only the first one is free. That distinction determines your budget, so it pays to have a clear understanding of it before the bidding process begins.
Hyvä Theme is the frontend itself, which has been free and open source under OSL3 and AFL3 since November 2025.
Hyvä Checkout is a standalone, paid product that replaces the standard Magento checkout. Since the theme license expired, a paid theme is no longer required to use Checkout.
Hyvä Commerce and Hyvä Enterprise are the paid packages for Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce, respectively. Hyva Commerce adds many features to the Magento backend and makes content management much easier.
When is Hyvä not the best choice?
Hyvä It’s a misguided investment if your performance issues aren’t in the front end. Your bottleneck is in the backend. If a category page takes a long time to load because an ERP integration is running in the background, a new storefront won’t change that. In that case, it’s advisable to immediately look into how this can be improved.
You’re going to migrate to a new platform within a year anyway. That means you’ll end up building the front end twice.
You rely heavily on front-end modules that don’t have a Hyvä version. For a store with a page builder, a visual configurator, and marketing modules that all affect the front end, compatibility work may become quite extensive. However, this can be assessed and estimated in advance.
You’ve just launched your own or a headless front end that’s performing well. There’s no need to replace a front end that’s fast and understands your customers just because something newer is available.
Your conversion problem isn’t a speed problem. If visitors abandon their carts due to unclear shipping costs or a login barrier, gaining half a second is less effective than removing that barrier.
What to look for when choosing a Hyvä partner
Ask a vendor to review the list of modules in your store. A quote provided without this assessment is a gamble, and you’ll pay the price for that gamble halfway through the project.
The questions that yield the most value are these: Which of my current modules do not have a Hyvä version, and what is the plan for each module? What percentage of the work involves design, and what percentage involves compatibility? Who will perform testing, and on which devices? What will happen to my B2B screens? And who will handle maintenance once the site goes live?
Also check the partner status at Hyvä. Factor Blue is listed there as a Hyvä partner, and since this applies to quite a few Dutch agencies, the status primarily indicates access to code and support and says little about whether someone has previously built a shop like yours.
So be sure to ask about the latter. Here are two examples of online stores with a similar catalog size.
Is Hyvä free?
The Hyvä theme has been free since November 2025. It is licensed under the OSL3 and AFL3 licenses, the same dual license as Magento Open Source. Hyvä Checkout, Hyvä Commerce, and Hyvä Enterprise remain paid products.
How much does a Hyvä online store cost?
A transition to a Hyvä front end typically costs 10,000 to 15,000 euros. That amount covers module compatibility, rebuilding the design for each page type, customization for B2B screens, and expanding your deployment process. A new Magento B2B web store represents a larger investment.
How long does a Hyvä migration take?
A Hyvä migration takes 6 to 12 weeks on average. Using few custom templates and front-end modules will put you at the lower end of that range. Incorporating a lot of B2B functionality, such as quote workflows and approval processes, will put you at the upper end.
How much faster is Hyvä than Luma?
In benchmark tests, a category page loaded in 1.6 seconds on an iPhone X at Hyvä compared to 8 seconds on Luma, measured on identical servers running Magento 2.4.4-p2. The page size went from 0.9 MB to 0.15 MB, and the number of HTTP requests dropped from 256 to 11. On a production store with marketing scripts and widgets, the improvement is less significant.
Why should you choose a Hyvä theme?
You choose Hyvä if your mobile load time is hindering your conversion rate or search visibility and the cause lies in the front end. First, have it tested to confirm this. If the delay is in the server, the cache, or a synchronous connection, then Hyvä won’t solve the problem.
Should I switch to Hyvä if I’m currently using Luma?
No, not right away. Hold off if you’re planning to migrate to a new platform within a year, if you rely heavily on front-end modules that don’t have a Hyvä version, or if you’ve just launched your own front-end that’s performing very well. However, it’s a good idea to think about the future of your online store’s front-end.
Does Hyvä work with a B2B online store?
Yes, but customer-specific prices, tiered pricing, corporate accounts, approval workflows, and quote requests require custom front-end development and account for the majority of the migration work for wholesalers.
Is “ Hyvä ” the same as “headless”?
No. “ Hyvä ” remains a server-rendered Magento theme and preserves the standard Magento architecture. With a headless setup, you deploy a separate front-end application for Magento that communicates via APIs, with its own hosting setup and maintenance requirements. Hyvä delivers a significant portion of the speed gains without that second codebase.
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