Hydrogen is a front-end web development framework for creating unique Shopify stores. It comes with everything you'll need to get started, including the structure, components, and tooling, so you can focus on styling and building features that make your business stand out.

Benefits

Shopify's recommended and opinionated method to creating creative and dynamic commerce experiences is known as Hydrogen. Hydrogen offers the following advantages if you're thinking about establishing a custom storefront.

Get started right away.

Hydrogen provides a beginning template for creating Shopify custom shops that is simple to use. The starter design interfaces with Shopify stores seamlessly and delivers a complete buying path right out of the box.

The starter template is based on the Hydrogen framework and styled with the Tailwind CSS utility package. You can either use Tailwind's library or create your own style.

Hydrogen is a web-based integrated development environment (IDE).

Enhance efficiency

For optimal speed, Hydrogen's architecture allows for a mix of static and dynamic data fetching on both the client and server sides. It's developed on top of cutting-edge web technology and employs a cutting-edge approach to web development to provide the following features:

For speed and performance

There are built-in caching controls to handle dynamic information and minimize API calls.

To reduce the initial burden, server-side rendering is used.

React Server Components is a data-fetching and rendering flow for React projects that is opinionated. The development experience using React Server Components is much better. Components render quickly, allowing you to see your work as you construct it.

Starter template for hydrogen

Create innovative commerce experiences in less time.

Hydrogen uses Shopify's basic tech stack and commerce skills to speed up the development process. It connects straight to the Shopify Storefront API for fast data retrieval.

Hydrogen comes with Shopify-specific React components, hooks, and commerce tools. They're easily accessible, fast, and ready to use. They also assist in reducing the initial complexity and boilerplate required to create a custom storefront.

Hydrogen was used to create the product details page.

What is the function of hydrogen?

The method you use to create a bespoke storefront is called hydrogen. It comes with a Vite plugin that provides server-side rendering (SSR) and hydration middleware, as well as code transformations for server and client components. The SSR and hydration middleware is comparable to Vite SSR versions now in use.

Hydrogen includes React Router, a framework that lets you use dynamic routing to manage routes in your project.

Components, connections, and utilities for hydrogen

Hydrogen includes commerce components, hooks, and utilities that enable Shopify features and concepts. It provides boilerplate code for custom stores, allowing you to concentrate on designing unique experiences.

Sources of information

Hydrogen is designed to work with data from Shopify's Storefront API. The data given to components, hooks, and utilities has a shape that matches to and adheres to the Storefront API's GraphQL types.

Data from third-party sources can also be supported by Hydrogen. Data from third-party sources, on the other hand, must first be translated into the types requested by the Hydrogen components, hooks, and utilities before being passed on to them.

Limitations and factors to consider

Only Shopify web stores can be built with hydrogen. Hydrogen does not currently support the creation of other forms of bespoke stores, such as mobile apps, video games, or smart gadgets.