Frequently Asked Questions

Product Information & Gatsby Integration

What is Hygraph and how does it integrate with Gatsby?

Hygraph is a headless CMS that provides a GraphQL-native architecture for flexible content management. It integrates with Gatsby using the gatsby-source-hygraph plugin, allowing developers to query project content, support localization, and manage content stages. This integration enables rapid development of static sites and applications with React and GraphQL. (Learn more)

What is the gatsby-source-hygraph plugin?

The gatsby-source-hygraph plugin enables easy integration of Hygraph with Gatsby. It allows you to fetch data from your Hygraph project using GraphQL, supporting features like localization and content stages. The plugin is maintained by the Hygraph community and is available on npm and GitHub. (Release details)

How do I use Hygraph with Gatsby?

You can use Hygraph with Gatsby by installing the gatsby-source-hygraph plugin and configuring it to connect to your Hygraph project. The integration supports Gatsby's File System Route API and gatsby-image for displaying Hygraph assets. Demos and video tutorials are available to guide you through the setup process. (See examples)

What makes Hygraph a good choice for Gatsby projects?

Hygraph is an excellent choice for Gatsby projects because both platforms are GraphQL-native, offering a seamless developer experience for building fast, flexible websites and applications. Hygraph provides custom content modeling, a frontend-agnostic approach, and easy integration with Gatsby, making it ideal for modern web development. (Learn more)

How does Hygraph handle images in Gatsby?

Hygraph uses the gatsby-image plugin to display image assets from Hygraph within Gatsby pages, ensuring optimized image loading and performance. (See examples)

Features & Capabilities

What features does Hygraph offer?

Hygraph offers a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, custom content modeling, and a user-friendly interface. It supports integrations with platforms like Netlify, Vercel, Shopify, BigCommerce, AWS S3, Cloudinary, and more. Hygraph also provides enterprise-grade security, audit logs, SSO, and sandbox environments. (See full feature list)

Does Hygraph provide an API?

Yes, Hygraph provides a powerful GraphQL API for efficient content fetching and management. Detailed API documentation is available at the Hygraph API Reference.

What integrations are available with Hygraph?

Hygraph supports integrations with hosting and deployment platforms (Netlify, Vercel), eCommerce solutions (Shopify, BigCommerce, commercetools), localization tools (Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling), digital asset management (Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot), personalization and AB testing (Ninetailed), AI tools (AltText.ai), and more. (See all integrations)

How does Hygraph handle SEO for Gatsby projects?

Hygraph supports SEO optimization for Gatsby projects using plugins like the Gatsby Sitemap Plugin and provides guidance for best practices. (SEO guide)

Pricing & Plans

What is Hygraph's pricing model?

Hygraph offers a free forever Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom Enterprise plans. For full details, visit the Hygraph pricing page.

Security & Compliance

What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph have?

Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. It offers features like SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments to protect sensitive data and meet regulatory standards. (Security features)

Use Cases & Customer Success

Who can benefit from using Hygraph?

Hygraph is ideal for developers, IT decision-makers, content creators, project/program managers, agencies, solution partners, and technology partners. It is especially beneficial for modern software companies, enterprises looking to modernize, and brands aiming to scale across geographies or re-platform from traditional solutions. (See case studies)

What industries are represented in Hygraph's case studies?

Hygraph's case studies span industries such as food and beverage (Dr. Oetker), consumer electronics (Samsung), automotive (AutoWeb), healthcare (Vision Healthcare), travel and hospitality (HolidayCheck), media and publishing, eCommerce, SaaS (Bellhop), marketplace, education technology, and wellness and fitness. (Explore case studies)

Can you share specific customer success stories?

Yes. For example, Komax achieved a 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, Samsung improved customer engagement with a scalable platform, and Dr. Oetker enhanced their digital experience using MACH architecture. (See more success stories)

Who are some of Hygraph's customers?

Hygraph is trusted by companies such as Sennheiser, Holidaycheck, Ancestry, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, and Clayton Homes. (See customer logos and stories)

Pain Points & Solutions

What problems does Hygraph solve?

Hygraph solves operational pains (reliance on developers for content updates, outdated tech stacks, conflicting needs from global teams, clunky content creation), financial pains (high operational costs, slow speed-to-market, expensive maintenance, scalability challenges), and technical pains (boilerplate code, overwhelming queries, evolving schemas, cache problems, OpenID integration challenges). (Learn more)

How does Hygraph address these pain points?

Hygraph provides an intuitive interface for non-technical users, modernizes legacy tech stacks with its GraphQL-native architecture, ensures consistent branding through content federation, and streamlines workflows to reduce costs and accelerate speed-to-market. It also simplifies development, query management, and schema evolution, and resolves cache and integration challenges. (See solutions)

What KPIs and metrics are associated with the pain points Hygraph solves?

Key metrics include time saved on content updates, system uptime, speed of deployment, consistency in content across regions, user satisfaction scores, reduction in operational costs, ROI, time to market, maintenance costs, scalability metrics, and performance during peak usage. (See KPI blog)

Technical Requirements & Documentation

Where can I find technical documentation for Hygraph and its Gatsby integration?

Comprehensive technical documentation for Hygraph and its integrations, including Gatsby, is available at the Hygraph Documentation and Gatsby source plugin repository.

How easy is it to get started with Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed for ease of use, with a free-forever account available for immediate signup. Customers can get started quickly using onboarding guides, video tutorials, and documentation. For example, Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months. (Documentation, Top Villas case study)

What feedback have customers given about Hygraph's ease of use?

Customers praise Hygraph for its intuitive interface and ease of setup, noting that even non-technical users can start using it right away. The user interface is described as logical and user-friendly, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical teams. (See feedback)

Support & Implementation

What support is available for Hygraph customers?

Hygraph offers 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone. Enterprise customers receive dedicated onboarding and expert guidance. All users have access to documentation, video tutorials, and the community Slack channel for assistance. (Contact Hygraph)

What training and technical support is available to help customers get started?

Hygraph provides onboarding sessions for enterprise customers, training resources such as video tutorials, documentation, webinars, and access to Customer Success Managers for expert guidance during adoption. (Contact Hygraph)

How does Hygraph handle maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting?

Hygraph offers 24/7 support for maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting. Enterprise customers receive dedicated onboarding and expert guidance, while all users can access documentation and the community Slack channel for additional help. (Contact Hygraph)

Velocity at Scale: Join the Launch of Hygraph’s Latest AI Innovations

Gatsby & Hygraph, Sittin in a Recursive Tree

This tale tells of a time before now, when Gatsby.js (a static site generator that combines React and GraphQL) was only using GraphQL internally. Gatsby could fetch data from static files, contentful APIs, Wordpress databases, and mongoDB, but it never fetched the seed data with GraphQL. Angel, the original plugin author and project leader, looked into static site generators for his personal website remake. He thought to himself, “Well, that doesn’t make much sense, does it?” And the idea was born.
Michael Lukaszczyk
Fabian Beliza

Written by Michael & Fabian 

Dec 06, 2017
Recursive data with Gatsby and GraphCMS

This is a guest post by Gatsby experts (Gatsperts): Angel Piscola – @redmega, Hugo Meissner – @hmeissner, Ricky de Laveaga - @rdela and Rafael Cordones - @rafacm

GraphQL is a query language and execution engine tied to any backend service.

This tale tells of a time before now, when Gatsby.js (a static site generator that combines React and GraphQL) was only using GraphQL internally. Gatsby could fetch data from static files, contentful APIs, Wordpress databases, and mongoDB, but it never fetched the seed data with GraphQL. Angel, the original plugin author and project leader, looked into static site generators for his personal website remake. He thought to himself, “Well, that doesn’t make much sense, does it?” And the idea was born.

Angel settled on Hygraph because he liked the UI and features they provided, as well as their free tier usage limits. Theoretically, this plugin will work with any graph.cool-backed GraphQL endpoint. We are all big fans of the entire GraphQL community, and hope to make using other GraphQL data sources like Apollo Launchpad with Gatsby even easier. We are blown away daily by the number of amazing developer and learning resources starting to bloom.

One of the most attractive aspects of Hygraph is how it preserves the operator ease of use of traditional CMS interfaces while harnessing the power and flexibility of Graph.cool (the underlying service) and GraphQL itself.

Angel had an open PR on the Gatsby repo from 20 August, and Rafael got involved and landed some commits on a new PR on 13 October. Angel had been an active and extremely helpful contributor on the Gatsby channel on the Reactiflux Discord (where people kept asking about the status of the plugin) and the Hygraph Slack for months, and Ricky had become interested in the plugin and started chatting with Angel in late September.

The Hygraph staff have been incredibly supportive all along, the Slack is very welcoming and we had all been chatting with Michael, Fabian, Daniel, and Jonas. Jonas created the Gatsby channel in the Slack on the same day Rafael opened his PR, as interest in the plugin began to swell. Hugo and Ricky made fast friends there and work began to snowball. There is something innately compelling about putting the two GraphQL sides together, which remains a work in progress we would love your help with. There are some really interesting ideas on the radar. The plugin is not without it’s limitations and you still have to provide your own query to get the data you want from your Hygraph project. Hugo is working hard to make sure those things are soon to be resolved in upcoming versions as soon as possible!

In the end both PRs would be closed and the plugin would find its home at last inside the Hygraph GitHub organization, thanks again to the entire Hygraph team making themselves available throughout the process and some Git sorcery from Rafael. That said, this plugin was outside the scope of their roadmap, so is a true community effort from 4 non-employees, and they did everything right to urge us on and allow the collaboration to happen. Also if you checked out the plugin already, using it just got way easier since Angel published 0.0.1 to npm and we have already updated the example.

In other sunny news from Gatsby-land, Shannon Soper is orchestrating a big research and data gathering mission to improve usability and the overall Gatsby experience. As part of that work a new searchable plugin index is coming. Kyle’s comment on Rafael’s PR is the beginning of great things for Gatsby. Decoupling new plugin development from the Gatsby monorepo is a great idea, and we think lesser used plugins already in the monorepo should be moved to their own repos. Maybe all source plugins like ours should live in their own repos, since by default everyone will not need all of them, and typically just one. This is part of what slowed us down, and switching to an isolated repo for testing was a crucial pivot point for us. Ricky spoke with Shannon and is very excited about the future of Gatsby and the plugin. If you care about the future of Gatsby, schedule some time with Shannon, then give our Gatsby plugin and Hygraph a try and let us know how it could be better.

If you got all the way to the bottom and are still wondering, ‘What about that title?’ we have a present for you.

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