Switching from Luma to Hyvä Theme in Magento 2: A Complete Migration Guide

The world of e-commerce is always changing, and Magento 2 store owners are looking for ways to improve their site performance and user experience. One of the major advancements in the Magento community is the Hyvä Theme with Magento 2, which is set to be game-changing in terms of how we build frontend solutions for Magento stores.

If you're using a Luma-based theme and are thinking about transitioning to the Hyvä Theme, you've come to the right place! This guide will detail all you need to know to migrate to Hyvä Theme in Magento 2.

Understanding the Current State of Magento 2 Themes

Before starting the migration process we need to know how we stand with Magento 2 themes today. Magento 2 is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, with over 250,000 live sites globally. The default Luma theme is the starting point for many Magento 2 stores, since the day it launched. However, things are changing quickly.

A survey done recently has more than 60% of Magento developers reporting performance problems using traditional Luma-based themes, especially in relation to page load times and mobile responsiveness. This has spurred greater interest in alternative solutions that are available, with Hyvä Theme in Magento 2 especially rising in popularity amongst both developers and store owners.

Data indicates that stores using modern performance-optimized themes, not using Luma, have 15-25% higher average conversion rates than their Luma counterparts. We can start to recognize how important it is to choose the right theme for your Magento 2 store.

What Makes Hyvä Theme Different?

The Hyvä Theme in Magento 2 signifies a significant change in our thinking about frontend development. Instead of traditional Magento themes that require heavy use of RequireJS and KnockoutJS, Hyvä Theme embraces a modern paradigm using Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS.

Key benefits of Hyvä Theme include:

Performance Benefits: Just check out independent benchmarks, Hyvä stores get 90+ in Google PageSpeed scores out of the box, whereas standard Luma themes typically score in the range of 30-50. What a difference! This is due to the fact Hyvä has a very small (practically zero) JavaScript footprint and has a well organized CSS structure so the page loads quickly from the start with little to no load times from any immediate functionality.

Developer Experience: Surveys of major Magento developers have shown that 85% find Hyvä easier to develop for than traditional Luma-based development. The reduction of development time has, on average, been reduced by 40% due to the simplicity of the technology stack for common customizations.

Mobile Performance: Mobile performance metrics show that Hyvä themes are 3-4 times faster on mobile versus traditional themes demonstrating a critical need for mobile optimization given more than 50% of total ecommerce traffic is mobile commerce.

Pre-Migration Planning and Assessment

Before you kick off your migration to Hyvä Theme in Magento 2, it’s important to get everything laid out first. This step is the backbone of your migration project.

Current Theme Review: At the very least, you should document every customization you have in your current Luma-based theme. You should have a record of all custom modules, layout changes, and third-party integrations. Industry data shows the average Magento store has between 15-20 custom modifications that will need to be addressed when migrating.

Extensions Compatibility Review: Not every Magento extension is Hyvä compatible right out of the box. Compare your installed extensions against the Hyvä compatibility list. Current data shows approximately 70% of popular Magento extensions have Hyvä compatible versions or alternatives available.

Performance Baseline: Record actual performance data for your current site, and you will want to use services like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and WebPageTest for the baseline. You will then use this baseline to measure improvement. When the average store switches to Hyvä Theme in Magento 2, they save between 50%-70% in load time.

Step-by-Step Migration Process

Phase 1: Environment Setup

To begin, create a development environment as close to your production environment as possible. Methodically install the Hyvä theme package using Composer (make sure you're licensed for your intended use).

To protect your work, it is always highly recommended to back up your store including the database and all of your files. A migration project can be a complex and unpredictable situation, so best to have a safety net in place.

Phase 2: Theme Installation and Configuration

After you have safely backed up all your information, you will follow the proper instructions for Installing Hyvä Theme in Magento 2. According to their official instructions, you will need to add the Hyvä repository to your Composer configuration and install the theme package.

Now that the Hyvä theme is installed, head to your admin panel and configure the basic configurations of the theme. This includes configuring the theme hierarchy and ensuring that fallback mechanisms are established properly.

Phase 3: Template Migration

At this stage, you will not be migrating any files, only modifying existing Luma-based templates to suit Hyvä's theme structure.

This will probably be the most time-consuming phase of migration. You will need to focus on existing templates that will work under Hyvä Architecture.

You should work on the most important templates; home page, category pages, product pages, checkout. All of the analytics indicate that typically these pages drive 80% of user engagement in typical e-commerce stores.

Be conscious of responsive design factors. The Tailwind CSS approach requires a different way of thinking compared to the normal practices of traditional CSS frameworks.

Phase 4: JavaScript and Interactive Elements

Swap out RequireJS and KnockoutJS pieces for Alpine.js equivalents. This is a delicate exercise in making sure all functionality is preserved, while maximizing Hyvä's performance efficiencies.

Let focus on key interactive elements first - Add to Cart functionality, Mini Cart, Product options, Search elements - Basically the things that directly impact user experience and conversion.

Phase 5: Extension Integration

You can then work through your extension compatibility list installing Hyvä versions where possible, or else you will likely have to create custom adaptations, or simply find another extension that does similar work for you.

Current market research shows that almost all popular extensions now have Hyvä compatibility, and this ecosystem is growing very rapidly. More than 200 extensions now have official Hyvä Theme support as for Magento 2.

Testing and Quality Assurance

Testing is a crucial step to ensure successful migration. Your testing plan will need to take into consideration those key aspects of your migration, as well as the overall success of your migration. Your testing will include several aspects:

Functional Testing: Spend time ensuring that every single piece of functionality on your site works on every device and browser. This will be especially relevant for parts of your site that engage users, e.g. checkout, user accounts, search.

Performance Testing: Testing your overall performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix will illustrate your improved performance. This should be documented including load times, Core Web Vitals, and importantly, mobile performance metrics (and improvements).

Cross Browser Testing: Test your migrated site against every major browser. Hyvä tends to give you a good out of the box experience across browsers. However, your project may have changed coded aspects that lead to issues on specific browsers.

User Acceptance Testing: Test your migrated site with stakeholders to test for usability issues that you may not get from the technical testing.

Post-Migration Optimization

After migration with Hyvä Theme in Magento 2, now look for opportunities to optimize:

Performance tuning: While Hyvä performs well upon launch, there is always room to make improvements. Optimize your images, have an established caching process, and look into a CDN.

SEO: Ensure that your migration did not negatively affect your search engine rankings. Look for changes in page speed, mobile usability, and Core Web Vitals.

Analytics/Monitoring: Establish monitoring to track the impact of your migration. It would be best if you tracked your conversion rates, bounce rates, and user engagement metrics.

Common Challenges and Solutions

Migration projects often face similar issues. Following is a list of the most common issues and their solutions.

Custom Module Compatibility: Custom modules that aren't compatible with Hyvä are always a challenge. Consider rewriting the custom module using Hyvä's architectural options. This type of investment usually pays for itself in a more maintainable and improved performance application.

Design Inconsistencies: Differences in the design principles between Luma and Hyvä can result in visual discrepancies. Rather than trying to recreate Luma styling in Hyvä, take a step back to realize you should embrace Hyvä's Tailwind CSS method for allowing design language to adapt, rather than controlling design language with attributes.

Training & Adoption: Your development team may want to take some time to adjust to Hyvä's different approach. Invest into some proper training and documentation.

Conclusion

Switching from Luma to Hyvä Theme in Magento 2 is much more than just a new theme. It is about investing in performance gains, enhanced user experience, and reduced development time. There is quite a bit of planning and work that goes into the migration, but the resulting performance, maintainability and user experience makes a migration worthwhile for serious Magento store owners.

The statistics show that stores using Hyvä Theme greatly exceed their traditional counterparts on the same performance metrics. As e-commerce competition increases, ensuring your themes are performant, responsive, and maintainable, is not an option anymore.

Whether you plan to migrate immediately, or just consider your options, it helps to understand what is required for a successful migration to Hyvä Theme along with the benefits. Ultimately, the return on investment for moving to Hyvä Theme in Magento 2 will have dividends in terms of performance, user experience and efficient development workflows.