Quick Summary: By going open-source on November 10, 2025, the Hyvä Theme is making a high-performance Magento frontend available to everyone for free. The impact is massive, with over 4,997 sites already operational, half as fast loading times, and conversion rates increasing by 20%. There is no need to pay any commission for the download from GitHub, and the installation can be done through Composer. As a result, the environment becomes better for everyone.
Hey there, e-commerce fans! In case you are a Magento store owner or just trying out online shopping setups, you might have heard the buzz about themes. They determine how your site looks and feels to customers. We are exploring this fresh news today that is disrupting the market: the Hyvä Theme has been made open source, and yes, it is entirely free.
This alteration was announced at the Meet Magento Netherlands event on November 6, 2025, and it was actually effective by November 10. For store owners, developers, and agencies, this indicates that there will be no more license fees for the core theme. It is a large move towards making fast sites more feasible for building and customizing.
We will simplify this matter in our blog. We will discuss what it means, why it is important, the recent statistics of the Hyvä performance, and the practical ways to implement it in your configuration. If you are fed up with slow-loading pages or want to reduce expenses without compromising quality, then there is something for you here. Let’s delve into it because speed and intelligence are the factors that lead to success in e-commerce.
What Is the Hyvä Theme, Anyway?
Before we jump into open-source excitement, let’s back up a bit. Hyvä Theme is a frontend framework for Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce. The best way to explain it to a layman is to say that by using Hyvä Theme, customers get to experience the “face” of your online store, i.e., the part of the store they see and interact with. In contrast to the Luma theme, which comes by default with Magento and to which Hyvä was developed to counter, slow load times and clunky designs are a few of the typical problems that wouldn’t have been there if one were to use Hyvä.
Hyvä was established in the year 2020, and it leverages several contemporary technologies, such as Tailwind CSS for styling and Alpine.js for facile interactions. It doesn’t go for the heavy, old-school JavaScript libraries, which are responsible for the downgrading of other themes. Consequently, users achieve faster loading pages, and at the same time, the whole experience is more fluid, especially when using mobile phones. Developers rave about it because they can easily customize it without the risk of things going wrong. Merchants would be better off with it since it promotes sales. Fast sites attract users for a longer time and thus, the chance that they will buy increases.
However, the catch was: Hyvä was not free. One had to obtain a paid license; therefore, it was not affordable for smaller shops or newbies. This update changes everything about it. Today, anybody can take the code from GitHub and start working. The licenses under which it operates are OSL3 and AFL3, the same open licenses under which Magento itself operates. It means that one is allowed to utilize the software at zero cost, make changes to it, and, if one wants, publish the changes as long as the basic guidelines are observed.
So, why should this be important to the common users? Suppose you are the owner of a small clothing store. With Hyvä being free, you are in a position to replace your slow theme with another without the need of forking out hundreds of euros. There is no need to select between a site that is budget-friendly and one that has the power to convert visitors into buyers. The whole Magento community benefits from it, the community that has been advocating for more open tools in the face of Adobe’s major changes to the platform.
The Announcement: A Milestone Five Years in the Making
It was November 6, 2025, at a fully packed conference hall in the Netherlands. Willem Wigman, Hyvä’s founder, approached the microphone. “We are giving back after five years,” he announces. The people there were very noisy and joyful. Hyvä Theme is released as an open-source project accessible to everyone, starting from November 10.
That was not a decision made in a moment of frenzy. Hyvä was initially conceived as a way to alleviate Magento’s frontend problems. The community was very divided in 2020: whether to keep using old themes or to move to complicated headless setups? Hyvä returned a solution that was in the middle, quick, easy, and it leveraged the server-side rendering capabilities of Magento.
The firm went solo on its path to triumph, as it expanded from the four members of the team in 2021 to a stable team today. They were able to do it all out of the proceeds from the theme sales, thus the creation of some add-ons like Hyvä Checkout and Hyvä Enterprise became possible. As Magento was changing under the influence of Adobe Commerce, Hyvä decided to “grow the pie” for everyone. “In effect, the code is released to everyone for their use and learning,” Wigman stated in the official post.
Key details from the announcement:
- Core Theme Free: You can download it from GitHub or Composer using free keys (up to 5 per account, 50 for agencies).
- Supporting Modules Open: All helpers have been re-licensed under OSL3.
- Proprietary Parts (Checkout) Stay Paid: Even if the Hyvä Theme is available for free, Hyvä Checkout is still a paid tool, and it remains the main factor for improving conversions. So, by no means, affecting, it offers faster processing, fewer checkout errors, and an overall pleasant mobile experience. Moreover, it supports most payment and shipping providers. So if you combine the free Hyvä storefront with the premium checkout, you get a store that is faster and conversion-focused.
This shift is consistent with Magento’s open-source origins. It is a lowering of the walls for small businesses, students, and startups. There is no longer a “pay to play” for top performance. What it does instead is to facilitate collaboration, community fixes, shared templates, and quicker innovation.
Why Go Open Source? The Reasons Behind the Shift
Hyvä didn’t make the decision to go open source without considering e-commerce needs that are very close to the ground. The first one is accessibility. Small players were held back by paid licenses. Now, a solo entrepreneur can create a fast store without any upfront costs.
The second one is community development. With open code, it means more people can see the bugs, fixes can be done quicker, and new ideas keep coming. One developer recently said in a forum, “It’s like handing out blueprints; everyone builds better together.”
The third one is the health of the ecosystem. Magento is going through a rough patch with Adobe’s rebrand. Hyvä wants to attract mid-market users who can be tempted to switch to Shopify or BigCommerce. By releasing the product for free, it is strengthening the relationship with partners like Mollie (payments) and Hypernode (hosting) while still being independent.
And lastly, it is a strategic move. Premium support and access to Hyvä UI (now €250 per store) will be available to the existing customers. There are cashback benefits when upgrading to full suites.
Some critics may ask if the quality will be lower without fees. The answer, according to Hyvä, is no. They have a certification program that launched in 2025, and it trains partners on best practices. Moreover, open source is usually a quicker progress driver, for example, Linux or WordPress.
What they mean in the end is sustainability. Hyvä is handing over the means to the community to thrive, thereby directly addressing the ‘paywall for performance’ issue.
How Hyvä Stacks Up in 2025
Hyvä’s numbers are very clear and compelling, they tell a story of gradual expansion. According to the late 2024 report, the number of live sites using Hyvä exceeded 4,997, and these sites were spread over 79 countries. The early post-announcement reports show that in the first two weeks of November 2025, downloads from GitHub increased by 25% compared to the same period of the previous year.
Hyvä is the technology behind 80% of new Magento builds, and the Netherlands is at the forefront, with 22% of the total revenue being generated there. The United States is the runner-up with a 93% year-over-year increase, in which a strong enterprise uptake is visible.
So where are the adoption hotspots? Fashion takes 25% of users, electronics 18%, and health/beauty 15%. The likes of Nestlé, Volkswagen, Dunkin’, and Jysk are some of the big names that power their sites with it, thus breaking the stereotype that it is just for startups. There are more than 700 agencies that have licensed it, a number that has grown by 75% since 2023. Since it is compatible with over 250 third-party extensions, it cannot be considered a niche player.
Hyvä drastically reduces page requests by 98% (5 vs. 230 on Luma) and the size of the page by 86% (0.4MB vs. 3MB). What about the loading times? According to the 2025 benchmarks, they are up to 50% faster. Mobile conversions are increasing by 15-30%. Organic traffic is increasing by 35%, while conversions are going up by 20%. Developers are saving 20-50% of the time they would normally use for the build process. A store has made the jump from 28 to 92 on the mobile version of PageSpeed.
After opening the source code, more should be expected. Since anyone can now access it for free, the number of users might be twice as large by the middle of 2026, thus leading to even better statistics.
Performance Breakdown: Hyvä vs. Luma in Real Numbers
We should delve into the differences in speed which is basically what is driving reason of Hyvä’s appeal. Luma, Magento’s standard, is okay for simple things, but becomes problematic when scaling. It performs over 200 JS/CSS files (1.5MB total), thus causing slow pages. Hyvä? Only two files (0.2MB). That’s a fivefold size cut. (Source)
| Metric | Luma (Default) | Hyvä (2025 Avg) | Improvement |
| Page Requests | 230 | 5 | 98% less |
| Page Weight (Uncompressed) | 3MB | 0.4MB | 86% lighter |
| Load Time (Desktop) | 4-6 seconds | 1-2 seconds | 50-70% faster |
| Mobile PageSpeed Score | 28-50 | 85-97 | +40-60 points |
| HTTP Resources | 256 | 11 | 96% fewer |
The 2025 test data reveal that Hyvä reaches almost perfect Core Web Vitals, which are Google’s speed standards. The main reason is that there is no RequireJS or Knockout.js bloat. Tailwind and Alpine are very light. For instance, a Luma product page might be slow on a mobile device, whereas with Hyvä it would be very fast.
What about the actual world? After the change, a seller saw desktop scores going up to 97/100. Another one reduced load times by 50%, thus increasing sales. If your site is slow, then Hyvä is a simple solution.
How Does This Solve Real Problems for Store Owners?
Open-source Hyvä is all about fixing the issues that matter most.
- Problem one: Cost. Small shops could not afford €249 licenses. Solution: No entry fee, thus freeing the budget for other purposes like marketing or hosting.
- Problem two: Speed kills sales. Slow sites lose 53% of mobile users. Hyvä’s minimalist style, thus achieving SEO and conversions without expensive overhauls, is the solution to that problem.
- Problem three: Customisation headaches. Luma is a bit stiff; if you tweak it, it may break. Hyvä’s modular swap parts like Lego. Developers are saying that they spend 20-50% less time on changes.
Agencies, in turn, are sitting on a goldmine. Free means more clients; open code means reusable templates. An agency has built a site in two weeks, which normally would take two months on Luma. Vendors lose in the game, but merchants gain with no vendor lock-in.
Accessibility? Hyvä is compliant with WCAG standards and is, therefore, ready for the 2025 EU rules. A mobile-first design is great for the 60% of shoppers who use their phones.
Cons? Some extensions need a little work to be fully compatible (98% can be used right away). However, as the community is growing, this issue is getting resolved very quickly.
Getting Started: Practical Steps to Adopt Hyvä
It is now more affordable and more straightforward than ever to change your frontend to the open-source Hyvä Theme. Clear instructions for starting 2025 with Hyvä are as follows:
- Confirm Compatibility First: The store must be Magento 2.4.5 or later (2.4.7-p3+ is recommended). Do the testing on a staging environment, not on a live one. Check the compatibility of your 10-15 top extensions with Hyvä from the official compatibility list. Almost all extensions are compatible with Hyvä in 2025.
- Get the Free Theme: Download the theme from hyva.io or GitHub (github.com/hyva-themes). After accepting the OSL-3.0/AFL-3.0 license once, you will be able to receive an unlimited number of free keys to be used with Composer (5 for a personal account and 50 for an agency).
Install via Composer (5-minute job)
Run these commands:
composer require hyva-themes/magento2-default-theme –no-update
composer update hyva-themes/magento2-default-theme
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento cache:clean
Enable the theme in Admin → Content → Design → Configuration.
- Migrate Content Quickly: Either make use of Hyvä’s free migration tool or just copy static blocks, CMS pages, and widgets. In most cases, Luma layouts can be changed within a few hours. Tailwind CSS is the one that deals with styling, and there is no need to rewrite a giant CSS file.
- Optimize & Launch: Varnish or Redis can be enabled, the cache can be warmed, and Google PageSpeed can be run. One can expect mobile scores to be between 85 and 97 almost immediately. The total timeline: 4-8 weeks for a full mid-size store, dev costs are usually between €5,000 and €15,000, and there are zero license fees.
- Need Help? You can be a member of the free Hyvä Slack (10,000+ members), get in touch with certified partners, or attend the €299 online certification course.
That is all. In 2025, a lightning-fast, conversion-boosting storefront is really free and only a few commands away. Begin today, and your load times will decrease while your sales will increase.
Key Takeaways
- The Hyvä Theme became completely free and open source on November 10, 2025, under OSL3 and AFL3 licenses
- More than 6,000 live stores worldwide now use Hyvä Theme, including major brands like Nestlé, Volkswagen, and Dunkin’
- Developers can now access the complete Hyvä codebase on GitHub without any licensing fees
- Merchants switching to Hyvä see 15-30% increases in conversion rates and 50-70% faster page loading times
- The move opens doors for students, small businesses, and beginning entrepreneurs to build modern Magento stores
Conclusion
One of the greatest contributions I can recall to the Magento community over the last couple of years is the Hyvä Theme deciding to go entirely open source and free on 10th November 2025. Small shops, startups, and solo developers have been kept in a situation where they have to choose one of two options: speed and budget. Now, a front-end with high performance is really within everyone’s reach.
More than 4,997 live sites are already achieving 50% faster load times, 20-35% higher conversions, and 98% fewer page requests with the Hyvä Theme. The rest of the story is thus evident from the numbers. Developers save weeks of work, agencies get more projects, and merchants witness real sales growth without paying any license fees.
Such a step is a rather strong affirmation of the future of Magento, but it is a bit underwhelming. By getting rid of the paywall but still having a premium support and enterprise tools funded, Hyvä has fashioned a sustainable model that is beneficial to the whole ecosystem. If you are running a Magento store and still haven’t thought of Hyvä, this moment couldn’t be more appropriate.
Faster sites, more satisfied customers, and lower costs are only a Composer command away. The future of Magento has just become a lot more brilliant and a lot faster.
5 FAQs
What licenses cover the open-source Hyvä Theme?
For open use, it is under OSL3, and for academics/commercial purposes, it is under AFL3. The supporting modules are under OSL3; however, proprietary add-ons like Checkout are kept paid.
How does Hyvä improve site speed over Luma?
Hyvä requires only 5 requests, where Luma requires 230; the file size is 0.4MB instead of 3MB, and the speed is almost twice as fast, i.e., 50% faster times, which is ideal for mobile shoppers in 2025.
Is Hyvä compatible with my Magento extensions?
Almost 98% of core features and 250+ third-party tools work without any issues. You can check the list; community ports quickly resolve most of the gaps.
What’s the cost to switch to Hyvä now?
The core theme is free. The migration, however, will cost you €5K-€15K depending on the amount of developer work and the time required, which will be around 4-8 weeks. There is no need for licenses, but if you want to make the most of your gains, you should budget for hosting tweaks.
Will open source hurt Hyvä’s updates?
No, it is not funded by premium partnerships. Support is still available for the existing users; the community is always there to help and speed up the fixes, and 5 major releases can be expected in a year.
CEO | SetuBridge Technolabs
Sagar Panchal, Founder of SetuBridge Technolabs, is a Magento-certified expert with 15+ years in eCommerce development. He has successfully led global projects, blending technical expertise and strategic vision to deliver scalable, high-performing online stores for businesses worldwide.
