Hyvä vs Luma: The Honest Comparison for Magento Merchants.

Hyvä vs Luma — questions we get asked

What's the difference between Hyvä and Luma?

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Luma is the legacy Magento frontend — built on Knockout.js, RequireJS, and LESS, with heavy server-rendered PHP templates. Hyvä is the modern replacement — built on Alpine.js, Tailwind CSS, and minimal JavaScript. Both run on top of the same Magento backend (admin, orders, products, integrations) — only the rendering layer changes. A migration from Luma to Hyvä is a frontend swap, not a re-platform.

Is Hyvä faster than Luma?

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Dramatically. A typical Magento store on Luma scores 30-55 on mobile Lighthouse Performance; the same store on Hyvä typically scores 80-92. JavaScript payload drops roughly 5x because Alpine + Tailwind require far less JS than Knockout + RequireJS. Time-to-Interactive on mobile usually halves.

Should I migrate from Luma to Hyvä?

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Most merchants should — the performance + UX gap between Luma and Hyvä is significant and will widen as Google's Core Web Vitals weighting compounds. Exceptions: (1) stores planning to replatform off Magento entirely within 12 months, (2) stores with very heavily customised Luma frontends where the migration cost exceeds the conversion-lift payback, (3) stores on Magento versions Hyvä doesn't yet support.

How much does migrating from Luma to Hyvä cost?

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Migrations from Luma to Hyvä start at £12k for small stores and reach £35k for medium B2C with full design rebuild. Hyvä Commerce migrations (including Hyvä Checkout) are £35k-£90k. The biggest cost variable is the extension count + design fidelity, not catalogue size.

Will moving from Luma to Hyvä hurt my SEO?

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Done properly, no — it improves SEO. We preserve every URL, redirect every URL that changes, retain all structured data, and the Core Web Vitals lift typically improves mobile-first ranking within 4-8 weeks. Migrations that hurt SEO are migrations done by teams that didn't take URL preservation seriously. Our migrations have a 100% URL-preservation track record.

Are my Magento extensions compatible with Hyvä?

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Many vendors now ship a Hyvä compatibility module — check compat.hyva.io for the current list. For extensions without vendor compat, a custom Hyvä compatibility module is needed. Cost is £1.5k-£8k per extension; we typically bundle this into the migration scope so there's no surprise add-on. See /hyva-compatibility for detail.

Why does Luma still exist if Hyvä is better?

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Luma is the default — every Magento installation ships with it. Hyvä is a commercial frontend you license + install separately. Magento (Adobe) hasn't made Hyvä the default partly because it's a third-party product, partly because the existing Luma ecosystem (every paid extension, every legacy theme) would break overnight. Luma will keep existing for years; Hyvä is increasingly the de-facto choice for any new build that cares about performance.

When should I stay on Luma instead of moving to Hyvä?

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Three honest scenarios: (1) You're planning a full replatform off Magento within 12 months — the migration cost won't pay back. (2) Your store has so much custom Luma frontend work that the migration cost exceeds the conversion lift. (3) You're on a Magento version Hyvä doesn't support yet, and the Magento upgrade itself is too risky to combine. Otherwise, Hyvä is almost always the right call.