PWA Studio vs. Vue Storefront vs. Front-Commerce: Comparing the best front-ends for headless commerce
Every e-commerce has different technological needs, often influenced by their teams and customers. When it comes to choosing a storefront solution for your online store, there’s a lot to think about. Framework, provider, features…
We’ve put together the comparison chart below in order to outline the technical differences between some of the top e-commerce front-end providers available today. And ultimately help inform you in your choice.
Download the PDF version of the comparison (it’s prettier 😉)
Headless Front-End Comparison
as of 01/12/2023
If you’re on mobile, scroll right to view all columns, or download the PDF version ↑
| Category |
Sub-category |
PWA Studio |
Vue Storefront |
Front-Commerce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General |
Created |
June 2018 |
November 2017 |
2015 |
| Last Version |
13.3.0 |
2.8.0 |
3.1 |
|
| Software Development Mode |
Open Source |
Open Source (Storefront Ul & some Vue Storefront integrations) Proprietary (Vue Storefront Connect & some Vue Storefront integrations) |
Proprietary |
|
| Provider |
Adobe |
Vue Storefront |
Front-Commerce |
|
| Agnostic |
❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| HQ |
USA |
USA & Poland |
France |
|
| Frontend Demo |
veniapwa |
demo.vuestorefront.io |
Demo |
|
| Link to |
GitHub |
GitHub |
GitHub |
|
| Pricing |
Included in Magento |
Free version and Enterprise version |
Pricing |
|
| Developer Chat |
Slack |
Discord |
Slack |
|
| Regular updates & long-term and backward compatibility for clients |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
| Integrations |
Ecommerce connector |
Magento 2.4+ |
Open Source Magento 2 OS Spree Sylius Odoo PrestaShop Vendure Shopware With Enterprise offer BigCommerce Commercetools SAP CC Shopify |
Magento 1 (CE, EE) Magento 2 (OS) Adobe Commerce B2B BigCommerce |
| CMS |
M2 CMS API / Page Builder |
Open Source LexasCMS Storyblok With Enterprise offer Amplience Bloomreach Content Contentful Contentstack LexasCMS Sanity |
Magento CMS API WordPress Prismic Contentful |
|
| Search |
ElasticSearch Algolia |
With Enterprise offer Algolia Bloomreach Discovery Constructor.io |
Algolia ElasticSearch Attraqt Magento 2 Native search (ElasticSuite) |
|
| Payments |
Paypal (Braintree), Stripe, Check MO, MultiSafepay |
Open Source Checkout.com With Enterprise offer PayPal, Stripe, Klarna, Mollie, Adyen, Braintree, G Pay. Apple Pay |
Adyen, Paypal, Stripe, LYRA / Payzen, Ogone, Affirm, BuyBox, Monext Online (Payline), Payment on account B2B, HiPay |
|
| Tracking |
Google Tag Manager |
Vue Analytics Google Tag Manager |
Compatible with all tracking solutions within Get analytics (Google Analytics, Intercom, Hubspot, Amplitude, Amazon, Pinpoint...) |
|
| Tech |
Release pace |
Minor version every 6 to 10 weeks |
Releases undated |
Minor version every 6 weeks |
| Frontend CodeBase |
React.js |
Storefront UI (Vuejs, React.js, Qwik) |
React.js |
|
| Backend codebase |
PHP |
Historically Nuxt but as of late, have adopted a hands-off DIY approach. See more here. |
Remix (NodeJS) |
|
| Data layer |
GraphQL |
Storefront Connect |
GraphQL |
|
| Cloud hosting solution |
In-house Cloud hosting solution |
Adobe Commerce Cloud |
✔️ |
✔️ |
| CDN |
❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| 24/7 Monitoring |
❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Continuous deployment |
❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Hosted in |
❌ | Unknown |
France |
|
| Autoscaling |
❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Problem Source Identification |
❌ |
✔️ | ✔️ (For all Front-Commerce and connected third-party issues) |
|
| Other |
Coverage of features |
All Magento OS Adobe Commerce |
Covers all Magento features, but varies for other integrations |
Covers 100% of Magento/ Adobe features and other backend solutions (eComm, CMS, search...) even B2B |
| i18n |
✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Multi-Websites |
✔️ | ✔️ (beta) |
✔️ | |
| Checkout |
✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Support |
No support |
Only with enterprise offering |
Unlimited support during build |
|
| Offline Support |
✔️ via Workbox |
✔️ Full |
✔️ Basic |
|
| Al |
Not in use |
In Beta |
In use |
|
Additional information |
Singular focus on Adobe/ Magento. No possible compatibility with other e-commerce connectors. | Fragmented offer, Storefront Ul, VueStorefront Connect and VueStorefront 2. It can be hard to understand the differences; not all features/ integrations are available across all offers. Some integrations are maintained by the community, not by Vue Storefront themselves |
All integrations and features are available to clients, with constant support and continuous improvements by our in-house team. We also always ensure that new updates and integrations are compatible with previous versions. For example, moving from Front-Commerce 2.X to 3X is possible in a matter of days. |