Vendure integrates with Alokai. What can you expect from it?

Vendure , a young but skyrocketing headless eCommerce platform , is now integrated with Alokai. This duo - with Vendure handling the backend logic and Alokai connecting all frontend applications - is a perfect combination for developers looking for a modern and highly customizable tech stack for eCommerce.

Vendure is definitely on a rising tide. Based on GraphQL, built with TypeScript and NodeJS, this open-source framework provides developers with an excellent experience, unleashing their possibilities in terms of customizability.

Vendure has been in our spotlight for quite a time, as it is definitely a rising star among open-source headless platforms.  It delivers content through its GraphQL API, leaving developers the freedom to implement any desired frontend applications in the technologies of their choice. This modern and modular approach is something that we are implementing while developing Alokai. Thanks to the engagement of Jakub Andrzejewski, creating the integration between VSF and Vendure was done faster than we could ever expect.

Filip Rakowski, CTO at Alokai. 

Watch the video: Vendure Integration with Alokai 2

Vendure came with no default frontend, but takes care of all business logic and focuses on API. This kind of architecture allows merchants to tailor their systems by composing best-in-class services. But that is, by no means, its only value.  Vendure - as much as it focuses on business needs, addresses developers’ pain points as well. How? It is based on a modern tech stack, that simply eases out their job while not tying their hands. And no wonder, as Vendure is a passion project that was born out of the genuine need to solve existing problems that blocked its founder.

Michael Bromley, previously involved in building headless CMS for the Austrian press agency, was looking for an open-source framework that he could use in rebuilding his parents’ online shop, the shop he built as a teenager in PHP. He was familiar with the benefits of Headless Commerce and strongly convinced that it should be his go-to direction. However, market research didn’t exactly satisfy him.

I was really, really kind of shocked to see that no one has solved this problem for the Node ecosystem. And that's where I saw this opportunity, as I knew that we need to have a really modern, Node-based eCommerce framework able to provide developers with amazing experiences. And that was the whole start of Vendure. I was, however, on my own, and there was no other option than making the project open-source. I wanted to collaborate with people all over the world who are trying to solve the same problem.

Michael Bromley, founder of Vendure.

And it clicked. Now, just after 3.5 years, there are about 1300 people in the Vendure Slack community, about 70 GitHub contributors on GitHub. 

At first, I had the idea, that maybe I could also provide a storefront. But then, after trying sorting this out, for a short time, I realized it takes a whole company to do a proper job. So I thought, that must be someone's going to step into this space. I got really interested in Alokai because I saw that its architecture is set up to work with any kind of backend. It was an opportunity to give my users a go-to solution for their stores.

Michael Bromley, founder of Vendure. 

The main reason for collaboration - beyond this general one - is that the integration with Vendure and Alokai enables frontend and backend developers to work using the same tools, the same workflows, the same language. And it is quite unique because there are very few headless backends based on Node and TypeScript out there. 

The same observation started to grow in the Alokai Team, and when Jakub Andrzejewski, Alokai Tech Leader, got involved in development - things moved quickly. Jakub got interested in the project due to its tech stack. He was certain that is worth deep dive into it, even though building integration wasn't one of his main tasks. He didn't hesitate to devote his free time to get the job done. 

Vendure immediately caught my attention due to its tech stack. It is built with Nest.js, the modern technology that is easy to set up and work with. I personally like it very much, and believe it is a very promising direction in web development. Secondly,I was super happy to see, that Michael shares these beliefs. With that kind of foundation, I was confident that collaboration will go smoothly. In the end, as it usually happens, it took me more time than I expected to finish the job. However, it was mainly due to the need to reconcile this project with my daily work.

Jakub Andrzejewski, Tech Leader at Alokai. 

Alokai and Vendure’s open-source DNA

The origin of Vendure has much common in Vue Storefont’s, as both of these projects came out as the solution to the existing problem, and - happily - turned out to be something that fill out the market niche. As Headless Commerce gains traction both of the projects are gaining recognition. Together they can provide merchants all over sizes with a tech stack able to keep up with the constantly changing users' needs: Vendure on the back and Alokai on the front.