Beyond Headless: The Ultimate Building Blocks for a Truly Composable Storefront
Build, manage, and scale your online storefront with ultimate freedom and flexibility
SkillNet’s Beyond Headless is a platform-agnostic headless solution built on micro frontend technology that represents a paradigm shift in the approach to building and delivering web applications. It empowers enterprises to create modular, scalable, and customizable applications without being tied to a specific framework or predefined set of features.
Beyond Headless offers compatibility with any eCommerce platform of choice today – and in the future – with pre-built integrations currently available for platforms from the following vendors:
Micro Frontend Technology vs Traditional Headless
Traditional Headless:
An architecture that separates the frontend (presentation layer) from the backend (business logic), allowing for independent development and deployment of frontend and backend functionalities. While this offers significant advantages over purely monolithic architecture, the frontend remains a single application that is still monolithic in nature.
Micro Frontend Technology:
More fully embraces the concept of distributed development, offering a revolutionary way to build complex, large-scale web applications by breaking them down into manageable, loosely coupled modules that are each responsible for a distinct feature of your eCommerce website or application.
The frontend is composed of independent, self-contained units, each with its own business logic, UI components, and APIs. These units each have their own functionality, codebase, and deployment process, enabling each micro frontend to be developed, tested, and deployed independently.
Furthermore, micro frontends seamlessly integrate with your preferred CMS and Search solutions, serving as the foundation for your journey to frontend composability.
Powerful, Developer-Friendly Tech Stack
- Next.js (React framework)
- Node.js (server-side runtime)
- Typescript (for improved code quality)
- NRWL (for efficient development workflows)
Polyglot Microservices
Enables enterprises to use multiple programming languages and technologies simultaneously, so individual frontend functionality can be built using whichever preferred technology is best suited for it. Customizing and innovating just got a whole lot easier and faster!
Embedded AI
Generative AI frees up merchandisers to focus on more strategic initiatives by automating repetitive tasks like generating product metadata and creating enhanced, high-quality content.
Advantages of SkillNet’s Beyond Headless over Traditional Headless
- Faster development, deployment, and iterative updates:
Changes to a specific micro frontend can be made and deployed independently without affecting the entire storefront, as different teams can work autonomously to implement different functions simultaneously. - Reusability:
Functionality can easily be reused in other microsites, saving the time, effort, and cost of creating it from scratch each time. Furthermore, an embedded app allows for easily changing themes to achieve a different look and feel. - Better performance:
Specific modules are loaded on demand rather than all at once, thereby reducing initial loading times.
- Improved maintainability, scalability, and resiliency:
Individual modules are easier to maintain and update because the code is smaller and less complex, and updates or bug fixes only affect the individual micro frontend. You can also scale specific features (e.g., adding more product filters) without impacting the entire platform, and if one module fails, the others will continue to function normally. - Loosely coupled teams and independent technology choices:
Different development teams can work on separate micro frontends using their preferred technologies for each specific feature without having to coordinate with other teams.
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SkillNet Solutions, Makers of Modern Commerce, provides digital transformation consulting and technology services to companies that are looking to modernize their omnichannel touchpoints to better engage and transact with their customers.