Headless Web Applications

What Is Headless Architecture?

Headless architecture decouples the presentation layer (the "head") from the backend systems that store content, manage products, and process orders. The frontend is a standalone application that fetches data via APIs from any number of backend services.

This separation creates fundamental flexibility: your content exists once and can be delivered to any channel — web, mobile, kiosk, voice, AR — without rebuilding backend logic for each. Your frontend can be rebuilt or redesigned without touching core commerce or content infrastructure.

When Headless Is the Right Choice

Headless architecture makes sense when:

• Performance is a primary differentiator: Edge-rendered Next.js applications consistently outperform platform-hosted storefronts on Core Web Vitals
• Multi-channel delivery is a requirement: Content managed once, delivered to web, mobile app, email, and emerging channels
• UX customization exceeds platform limits: Shopping experiences that require checkout flow control, custom animation systems, or unique interaction patterns
• You have dedicated frontend engineering capacity: Headless requires engineering ownership; it's not set-and-forget

Our Headless Stack

Frontend: Next.js and Nuxt.js

We build on Next.js (React) and Nuxt.js (Vue) depending on team expertise and project requirements. Both frameworks provide:

• Server-side rendering and static site generation
• Edge runtime deployment via Vercel or Cloudflare
• React Server Components (Next.js) for efficient data fetching
• Image optimization and lazy loading built-in

Content: Sanity CMS

Sanity is our preferred headless CMS for brands that need editorial flexibility. Sanity's structured content model, real-time collaboration, and portable text format make it the best option for brands with active content teams.

We configure Sanity document types to match your content model, build custom preview functionality, and configure editorial workflows for draft/publish cycles.

Commerce Backend

Headless frontends can connect to any commerce backend. We've built headless storefronts on top of:

• Shopify Plus via Storefront API — accessing cart, checkout, and product data while maintaining Shopify's checkout security
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud via SCAPI — for brands needing SFCC's enterprise capabilities with a modern frontend
• Custom backends — for organizations with unique commerce logic that platforms can't support

Deployment: Edge-first

We deploy headless applications to Vercel or Cloudflare Workers for edge rendering — pages are rendered close to users globally, delivering sub-second response times for most markets.