It’s an approach where your storefront and backend are separated. Magento manages catalog, orders, and inventory, while your frontend is built independently and connects through APIs.

If you need speed and simplicity within Magento’s own templating system, Hyvä is usually faster and cheaper. Headless makes sense when you need full design freedom across multiple channels.

React, Vue.js, Angular, and Next.js are the most common choices, connected to Magento through REST or GraphQL APIs.

Generally yes, upfront. Building a custom frontend and API layer takes more time than customizing a theme. The trade-off is far greater flexibility and channel reach long term.

Yes. Since the frontend and backend are decoupled, the same Magento backend can serve a website, a mobile app, and other channels through the same APIs.

Yes, when built correctly. Techniques like server-side rendering or pre-rendering ensure search engines can still crawl and index your content properly.

Timelines vary widely by scope, but most projects run longer than a themed build. Typically several months from architecture planning through launch.

Yes. Decoupling the frontend from the backend can actually improve security, since the backend is isolated from direct public exposure.