2025-07-02 Rapidez vs Hyvä
We didn't want to write this blog as we don't think this should convince you to choose one or the other, but it seems not everyone understands the difference. So Rapidez vs Hyvä / Magento frontend? Hopefully this blog answers all your questions! 💭
Similarities
Both projects were founded out of frustration for the Magento frontend. Older technologies, slower development, etc. While much more modern tools are available. Fun fact is both were founded in 2020! 🏠 We also share some technologies; Tailwind CSS, Vue.js (Alpine.js is using Vue), and of course PHP 🤘🏻
Differences
It's pretty simple;
Hyvä is a paid closed-source theme for Magento 💰 You keep using the Magento ecosystem for the frontend.
Rapidez is not a theme, it's a free and open-source standalone frontend for your Magento store that uses the Laravel ecosystem. So with Rapidez you only use the Magento Admin, the frontend is within another repository and it communicates with GraphQL 🆓
Advantages of Rapidez
InstantSearch
You'll get super fast filtering, sorting, searching and an autocomplete out of the box! 🔎 So no need for additional search addons like Tweakwise, ElasticSuite, Amasty Improved Layered Navigation, etc. We're using the most popular open-source frontend library for this: InstantSearch. This is using the existing OpenSearch / Elasticsearch engine which you're using for Magento. More info on InstantSearch in the Rapidez v4 blog.
Laravel Ecosystem
Laravel isn't just a framework; it's a whole ecosystem of packages, products, and a huge community 🫶🏻 Rapidez is utilizing multiple first-party Laravel packages like Laravel Scout and Laravel Dusk but there is more! Need to monitor your queues? Use Laravel Horizon. In depth monitoring? Use Laravel Nightwatch. See all products and packages at Laravel.com. Plus if you're a fan of Laravel Livewire; you can use it directly instead of using the Magewire port.
Pricing
We'll keep this short: Rapidez is free and open-source, while Hyvä is a paid solution 💸 The Hyvä Theme is €1000, the Hyvä Checkout is €1000 (+ €250 a year for updates), or you can opt for Hyvä Commerce at €3000 per year! But it's not only the price, also the hosting costs will be less and you can remove a lot of Magento modules!
Fewer Magento modules
Most modules that interact with the frontend can be removed from your Magento installation. On average 80% of third-party and custom Magento modules can be removed! This results in faster Magento updates and lower recurring costs! So no more waiting for third-party modules to be compatible with the latest Magento version.
Most likely you will need some alternatives for those within Rapidez. We do have some Rapidez packages and compatibility with some Magento modules but a lot of common Magento module functionalities (like a onestep checkout, improved filtering, autocomplete, etc) are integrated within Rapidez by default.
Other modules used for content like blogs, FAQs, etc., are better handled by a proper CMS. Rapidez does support multiple CMS integrations but Statamic stands out! Anything left? Contact us and we're happy to help you out. Need more info? We've covered this topic previously in the Rapidez v2 blog.
Speed and Lighthouse scores
Not only the request speed, but also the development speed and great Lighthouse scores 🚀 We could throw a bunch of benchmarks around but it's better to test it yourself and try it out! 🟢🟢🟢🟢
Have a look at some Rapidez showcases, check out the Rapidez demo or even better; set Rapidez up locally and do some simple changes. Be amazed by how fast everything goes, even uncached! Plus deployments will go way faster! No more code compilation and long upgrade commands for just some frontend changes. Release within a minute! 🏁
Clean Blade templates
Just compare some views within Magento / Hyvä with the Blade views in Rapidez 😍 Functional things are separated from the visual things by using renderless Vue components, there is a clean component structure so you don't repeat yourself and you don't have to copy-paste code around.
Another big plus is that you don't have to use XML and phtml files anymore! You'll get a simple, yet powerful templating engine: Laravel Blade making the frontend way easier and safer! Everything is escaped by default preventing XSS attacks 🔒 Need to add something anywhere? Just open the template and put it there by using an include, component or stack. Much cleaner in comparison with phtml files where PHP and HTML is mixed.
Learning curve
Trouble finding qualified Magento developers? 🤕 How many developers have experience with, and love to work with Laravel? ❤️
Magento is harder to learn and Laravel developers are easier to find! How many times did Magento developers complain about the Magento speed or anything else Magento related? 🤬 Developing with Rapidez and Laravel is way faster and more enjoyable 🙌🏻
Faster time to market
Start a fresh Rapidez project and the install command will give you a great start, change some colors and run the index command; your proof of concept is ready. Pick a checkout option, change some frontend within clean templates, add some packages and maybe try out Statamic. Release it on a affordable hosting solution and your MVP is ready! 🚀
Reduced hosting costs
Hosting Laravel applications is a breeze with Laravel Forge or similar tools. Need to scale even more? 📈 Use Laravel Vapor or Laravel Cloud. Just spin up a small server at for example Digital Ocean or Hetzner and deploy Magento and Rapidez. Magento doesn't need to handle all requests anymore as all frontend visits go to Rapidez. Overall usage will drop significantly, resulting in lower hosting costs. In multiple projects the average hosting costs are reduced by 75% to 90% 📉 so if you're paying €500 a month to keep your Magento shop running, with Rapidez you can host that for just €50 to €125 a month! 🤑
Statamic integration
Magento isn't a CMS, yes it does have blocks, widgets and a page builder but you can't compare that to a full CMS with a menu builder, multiple content types, nested navigations, revisions, forms and with Statamic: full flexibility with collections, taxonomies, fieldtypes, and many more!
The good news, Statamic is free! 🆓 (and does have a paid pro license with extra features). Give this CMS a try, it's wonderful! 🥰 Just look around on their website for all features, read those excellent docs and if you're thinking: "we don't want a flat file CMS"; it also supports databases (which we recommend to use). Just like Rapidez, Statamic is also built on Laravel and can be integrated tightly within the same repository. We don't force you to use this; any CMS can be integrated and it's also fine to stay within Magento. Blocks and widgets can easily be shown in the Rapidez frontend.
The Rapidez Statamic integration provides a lot of useful features like a data integration with Magento; so you can use Magento products, categories and brands within Statamic 🔗 Useful when you need to link to something or create a slider with products.
Drawbacks of Rapidez
If you're used to Magento and haven't worked with Laravel, there may be a learning curve, but hey! There is Laracasts, the best resource to learn Laravel and anything related to it, Tailwind, Vue, Statamic, Hosting, etc. + Rapidez does have extensive docs 📖
Magento modules
As mentioned at the advantages; you can get rid of a lot of Magento modules but maybe for a few there aren't any alternatives yet. You need to build something for that but development within Rapidez is way faster as you can utilize Laravel with tons of free packages which makes integrations an ease 🤝🏻
Themes
There are plenty of themes for Magento, but with Hyvä you're back to one base theme from where you're going to built your frontend. The same applies to Rapidez, you could just change some colors and go live or customize everything. Yes, there is Hyvä UI but there is also Tailwind Plus (and many other free component libraries) with a lot of ecommerce components. So what's the drawback? You'll need to build some things yourself! 🏗️
Underdog
It may seem a disadvantage; no marketing team and no sales team but we can move fast, no bureaucracy and full focus on innovation! Despite we're the underdog there are multiple big webshops using it 🎉 See the Rapidez showcases with Dutch sites like Ranzijn, Drank.nl and Fietsenwinkel (with the standalone checkout)
Conclusion
Want to keep your frontend within Magento? Go with Hyvä. Otherwise, give Rapidez a try! 😎
Questions?
Did we forgot to mention anything? Is there something wrong in this comparison? Please let us know! Contact us and subscribe to our newsletter on the homepage.
