Hyvä Theme is Now Open Source & Free: A Game-Changer for the Magento Ecosystem

Updated on November 17, 2025

10 mins read

The Magento community has been waiting for this moment. After five years of transforming how developers build Magento stores, Hyvä Theme has officially become open source and free to use. It’s now licensed under OSL3 + AFL3. Starting November 10, 2025, this performance-first frontend framework is accessible to every developer, agency, and merchant without any licensing barrier.

Hyvä Theme is now open source, and it shouldn’t be just considered as any other product announcement, it is a shift in the Magento landscape that could redefine the future of Magento development and bring thousands of new merchants into the ecosystem who were earlier thinking or willing to open or upgrade their Magento Hyvä theme development store. Let’s take this blog further to look into what this means and bring into the future in detail.

The Journey to Open Source: Five Years in the Making

Hyvä was born out of necessity five years ago. The Magento community faced a lack of frontend options and was being pushed toward headless solutions. While the Luma theme was aging and difficult to maintain, many developers weren’t ready for complex PWA solutions. Hyvä offered a third path that is a modern, lightweight frontend built on familiar PHP templating, powered by Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js.

Read More – AlpineJS in Hyvä Themes

The results spoke for themselves. Hyvä achieved a 98% reduction in page requests (5 vs 230 compared to Luma) and an 86% reduction in page weight (0.4MB vs 3MB uncompressed) which led to dramatically faster load times and better Core Web Vitals scores. Developers reported 20-50% savings in development time. Hyvä grew to power over 6,000+ live stores, including major brands like Nestlé, Volkswagen, Dunkin’, Jysk, and Replay Jean.

But the story doesn’t end here because the team behind Hyvä always had bigger ambitions, from the beginning, they planned to give back to the Magento community in the most meaningful way possible by making their core product free and open source.

What Hyvä Offers with a Commercial License?

Before we dive into what’s free, let’s understand what Hyvä previously offered with its commercial license. This helps appreciate the value that’s now being unlocked for the entire community.

With a paid Hyvä Theme license, customers received:

Full access to the Magento Hyvä Theme source code
Unlimited updates and improvements
Support for unlimited domains and store views
Access to premium support channels
Compatibility with 1,000+ Magento extensions
Community Slack access
Comprehensive developer documentation

All development and go-to-market capabilities were funded through Theme sales. This allowed Hyvä to grow from 4 people in 2021 to a sustainable company with multiple product offerings.

The commercial model also enabled Hyvä to:

Build premium products like Hyvä Checkout, Hyvä UI, Hyvä Enterprise, and Hyvä Commerce
Establish partnerships with extension vendors to ensure compatibility
Sponsor and organize Magento community events worldwide
Contribute to Mage-OS and the Magento Association
Maintain long-term support commitments

What Hyvä Now Offers as Open Source and Free

Here’s where things get exciting. Starting November 10, 2025, Hyvä Theme is freely available on GitHub. You can also get it via free Packagist Composer keys through the Hyvä Portal.

What’s Included in the Free Open Source Package:

Core Hyvä Theme

Complete theme source code with all layout XML and PHP template files
Built on Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js
Optimized for exceptional performance out of the box
Full customization freedom under OSL3 + AFL3 licenses

Developer Resources

Comprehensive documentation at docs.hyva.io
Community Slack channel access
GitHub repository for contributions and issue tracking
Active community support from thousands of developers

Extension Compatibility

Access to compatibility modules for 1,000+ Magento extensions
Growing ecosystem of first-party and community-built integrations
Open compatibility module repository

Performance Benefits

Passes Google Core Web Vitals on all metrics
98% fewer requests and 86% lighter page weight compared to Luma
Improved SEO rankings and conversion rates
Lower server resource requirements

What Remains Commercial:

Hyvä’s open source move doesn’t mean everything is free. The company maintains sustainability through premium products:

Hyvä UI – Now available as a separate product at just €250 per Magento store. This library offers ready-to-use UI components for faster development and consistent design.

Hyvä Checkout – A conversion-optimized, React-based checkout experience with extensive PSP integrations. No longer requires a paid Hyvä Theme license.

Hyvä Enterprise – Full Adobe Commerce compatibility for enterprise-level deployments. Also no longer requires a paid Magento Hyvä Theme license.

Hyvä Commerce – Enhanced functionality and modern admin panels for merchants who want to maximize Magento’s power. Existing Theme licensees receive cashbacks when upgrading to Hyvä Commerce.

Premium Support – Existing Hyvä Theme licensees will keep their premium support and access to Hyvä UI.

This hybrid model ensures Hyvä can continue developing and supporting its ecosystem while removing the entry barrier for the core theme.

Why Going Open Source Matters for the Magento Ecosystem

Democratizing Access for Developers and Merchants

Now there won’t be a licensing barrier which ultimately allows agencies, merchants, extension developers, and new entrants to utilize the power of Hyva at another level. This is particularly important for:

Small businesses and startups that previously couldn’t justify the upfront licensing cost would be able to implement it for their store.
Students and educators are learning Magento development while creating stores using the Hyva theme.
Beginning entrepreneurs starting their first eCommerce venture can avail theme features for which earlier they need to pay.
Agencies running exploratory builds for Magento store or proof-of-concept projects have no limitations.

Smaller businesses, students, and first-time entrepreneurs now have more opportunity to start with Magento + Hyvä. This helps grow the ecosystem at the lower end. When merchants grow, agencies grow, and extension vendors grow.

Transparency and Trust

Open source means the code is visible to everyone. Developers can:

Audit the codebase for security and performance
Understand exactly how the theme works
Make informed decisions about adopting the technology
Contribute improvements back to the community

Community-Driven Innovation

Now as we know the Hyvä theme is open source so the most exciting aspect of open source is the potential for community contributions. With Hyvä’s code now on GitHub:

Developers worldwide can submit bug fixes and enhancements
Extension vendors can build better compatibility modules
Agencies can share custom implementations and best practices
The theme can evolve faster than any single company could manage alone

Hyvä hopes this opens doors for renewed collaboration and contributions. This gives a new impulse to the open source ecosystem. The collective intelligence of thousands of developers will accelerate innovation and ensure Hyvä stays ahead of industry trends.

Commercial Theme Development

The dual AFL licensing means anyone can build a commercial theme on top of Hyvä. They can sell it under their preferred license terms. This creates opportunities for:

Design agencies to create premium templates
Niche-specific themes (fashion, beauty, automobiles, B2B, wholesale, etc.)
Industry-specific executions
Pre-built demo stores for faster launches

This ecosystem of commercial themes will further lower barriers to entry. It also creates new revenue streams for creative developers.

Strengthening Magento’s Position

With Magento 2 Hyvä theme, merchants have ultimate flexibility thus in increasingly dominated SaaS marketing they can be a key differentiator. They can build what they need, own what they build, own their customer data, and choose service providers freely, not those dictated by a SaaS platform.

The open source Hyvä Theme reinforces this value proposition. It makes Magento more competitive at every price point from solo entrepreneurs to enterprise retailers.

Hyvä vs Luma: Why Performance Matters

Here’s what makes Hyvä different:

Architecture: Luma relies on heavy JavaScript frameworks like RequireJS, Knockout.js, and jQuery. This creates bloated page loads. Hyvä rebuilt everything from scratch using lightweight Alpine.js and modern Tailwind CSS.

Performance: Hyvä cuts down requests by 98% and shrinks page weight by 86% when you stack it up against Luma, this result in your site will load way faster, and those Core Web Vitals scores shoot up, which is exactly what you want.

Development Speed: Partner Magento agencies that are currently working with the Hyvä team report they’re saving anywhere from 20% to 50% on build time versus regular Magento setups. The whole system is simpler, so tweaking things and keeping everything running smoothly takes less effort.

SEO Impact: Page speed plays a big role in where you land on Google these days, and Core Web Vitals are a huge part of that equation now. Hyvä handles these metrics really well while Luma tends to fall behind, which means better rankings for your store.

Conversion Rates: We know from numerous studies that page speed has a real impact on conversions. Even a one-second delay can cost you sales. With Hyvä’s performance advantages, you’re not just getting a faster site, you’re getting a platform that’s better equipped to turn visitors into customers.

Getting Started: Magento Hyvä Theme Installation Guide

Ready to try Hyvä? Here’s what you need to know:

System Requirements

Magento 2.4.4 or higher (Magento 2.4.4-p9, 2.4.5-p8, 2.4.6-p7, 2.4.7-p1 recommended)
PHP 8.1+ (PHP 7.4 support ending in 2025)
Node.js 20.0.0 or higher for Tailwind CSS compilation
Composer for dependency management

Installation Steps

1. Install via Composer

composer require hyva-themes/magento2-default-theme

2. Enable Required Modules Enable GraphQL modules that Hyvä depends on for certain features.

3. Configure the Theme Navigate to Content > Design > Configuration in your Magento admin. Activate the hyva/default theme. Important: Set the theme at both Website and Store View levels.

4. Disable Legacy Optimizations Turn off Magento’s built-in minification and bundling. They don’t benefit Hyvä and can cause conflicts.

5. Deploy Static Content In production mode, run setup:static-content:deploy to generate theme assets.

6. Create Your Child Theme Build a custom child theme to preserve your customizations across updates.

Real-World Impact: What Merchants Are Seeing

The performance improvements aren’t theoretical. Case studies from brands like Volkswagen and Dunkin’ show measurable results. These range from conversion lifts to improved user experience.

E-commerce sites running Hyvä report:

Significantly improved Google PageSpeed scores (often 90+ on mobile)
Passing all Core Web Vitals metrics
Reduced bounce rates from faster page loads
Higher search rankings due to better SEO signals
Lower hosting costs from reduced server load
Faster time-to-market for new features

From a hosting perspective, Hyvä makes it easier for clients to achieve great performance. Faster stores mean fewer server resources, better scalability, and lower overall hosting costs.

The Future of Magento Development

This move deserves recognition. Willem Wigman and the Hyvä team built something out of necessity, grew it responsibly, and are now opening it up to the wider community. That takes vision and genuine belief in the Magento ecosystem.

For agencies, the open source shift creates new opportunities:

Position Hyvä as a truly open-source frontend that reduces upfront cost and risk
Now agency owners can take smaller and medium size projects that were earlier difficult to work on.
Customize and scale up their services without proprietary licensing constraints
Build expertise around different services related to the Magento Hyvä theme that’s increasingly in demand

For merchants, there is no need to explain much because you will already get a modern, performant Magento frontend without the license fee. You have full ownership, flexibility, and control. This perfectly aligns with what makes Magento appealing.

For the Magento platform itself, this strengthens its competitive position against SaaS alternatives. It reinforces the value of open source commerce.

Conclusion: A New Chapter for Magento

Making Hyvä Theme free and open source is more than a licensing shift, it’s backing the Magento platform’s future. By removing cost barriers, Hyvä opens doors for students, startups, and small businesses to start their Magento journey.

Whether you’re chasing better performance, cleaner code, or faster client builds, Hyvä’s open source release changes everything. The fastest Magento theme is now free for everyone.

Ready to try it? Rock Technolabs is offering Magento 2 Hyvä theme services which are implemented by our expert developers who have created remarkable, feature-rich, and conversion-driven Hyvä theme stores, so what are you waiting for, contact us now – +91 99047 96885.