Frequently Asked Questions

Features & Capabilities

What features does Hygraph offer for building content-heavy and eCommerce websites?

Hygraph provides a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, and scalability, making it ideal for content-heavy and eCommerce websites. Key features include scheduled publishing, flexible content models, fine-grained permissions, localization, API extensions, and seamless integration with frameworks like Next.js and deployment platforms like Vercel. These features enable rapid content updates, structured data management, and high performance for large-scale digital experiences. Learn more about Hygraph features.

How does Hygraph integrate with Next.js and Vercel?

Hygraph integrates seamlessly with Next.js and Vercel to deliver performant, scalable web applications. Using Hygraph as the content platform, teams can leverage Next.js for static site generation, server-side rendering, and incremental static regeneration. Vercel provides fast deployment and global CDN delivery. This combination enables rapid content updates, flexible data fetching, and optimized SEO and localization for both content-heavy and eCommerce sites. Read the full discussion.

What integrations are available with Hygraph?

Hygraph offers a wide range of integrations, including hosting and deployment (Netlify, Vercel), headless commerce (BigCommerce, commercetools, Shopify), localization (Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling), digital asset management (Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot), personalization and AB testing (Ninetailed), artificial intelligence (AltText.ai), and more. For a full list, visit the Hygraph Integrations page.

Does Hygraph provide an API for content management?

Yes, Hygraph provides a powerful GraphQL API that allows you to fetch and manage content efficiently. This API supports advanced features such as mutations, localization, and content federation. Learn more at the Hygraph API Reference.

How does Hygraph support localization and internationalization?

Hygraph offers native localization features, enabling teams to create and manage content for multiple locales programmatically or via the UI. Combined with Next.js internationalized routing and middleware, this allows for seamless delivery of localized content and optimized user experiences for global audiences. Learn more about localization in Hygraph.

What technical documentation is available for Hygraph?

Hygraph provides comprehensive technical documentation covering all aspects of building and deploying projects, including API references, integration guides, and onboarding resources. Access the documentation at Hygraph Documentation.

Use Cases & Benefits

What are common use cases for Hygraph and Next.js?

Common use cases include content-heavy websites, eCommerce platforms, and applications requiring high performance, localization, and flexible content operations. Hygraph and Next.js together enable rapid content updates, scalable architectures, and optimized SEO for both static and dynamic content scenarios. Read more about these use cases.

How does Hygraph help eCommerce platforms?

Hygraph enables eCommerce platforms to serve large volumes of product data with low latency, support internationalization, and react quickly to changes in inventory or user trends. Features like programmatic content creation, flexible permissions, and integration with Next.js for dynamic routing and static generation help teams deliver consistent, high-performance user experiences. See more details.

Who can benefit from using Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed 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 seeking to modernize their tech stack, and brands aiming to scale globally or improve development velocity. See customer case studies.

What business impact can customers expect from using Hygraph?

Customers can expect significant business impacts, including time savings through streamlined workflows, ease of use with an intuitive interface, faster speed-to-market, and enhanced customer experience through consistent and scalable content delivery. These benefits help businesses modernize their tech stack and achieve operational efficiency. Learn more.

Pain Points & Solutions

What problems does Hygraph solve for content teams and developers?

Hygraph addresses operational pains (reducing reliance on developers for content updates, modernizing legacy tech stacks, resolving conflicting needs of global teams, improving user experience), financial pains (lowering operational costs, speeding up time-to-market, supporting scalability), and technical pains (simplifying development workflows, streamlining query management, resolving cache and integration challenges). See how Hygraph solves these problems.

How does Hygraph address the pain points of different user personas?

Hygraph tailors its solutions to different personas: developers benefit from reduced boilerplate code and streamlined queries; content creators and project managers gain an intuitive interface for independent content updates; business stakeholders see reduced operational costs and improved scalability. These tailored solutions ensure each persona's unique challenges are addressed effectively. Learn more.

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

Key metrics include time saved on content updates, system uptime, consistency in content across regions, user satisfaction scores, reduction in operational costs, time to market for new products, maintenance costs, and scalability metrics. These KPIs help measure the effectiveness of Hygraph in addressing operational, financial, and technical challenges. Read more about CMS KPIs.

Performance, Security & Compliance

How does Hygraph ensure optimized content delivery performance?

Hygraph emphasizes rapid content distribution and responsiveness, which directly impacts user experience, engagement, and search engine rankings. By leveraging CDN caching and integration with platforms like Vercel, Hygraph reduces bounce rates and increases conversions. Learn more about performance optimization.

What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph have?

Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. It offers enterprise-grade security features such as SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments to protect sensitive data and meet regulatory standards. See Hygraph Security Features.

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 detailed information, visit the Hygraph pricing page.

Support & Implementation

How easy is it to get started with Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed for quick onboarding, even for non-technical users. Customers can sign up for a free account and use resources like documentation, video tutorials, and onboarding guides. For example, Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months. Get started with Hygraph Documentation.

What customer support does Hygraph provide?

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

What training and onboarding resources are available for new users?

Hygraph provides onboarding sessions for enterprise customers, training resources such as video tutorials, documentation, webinars, and access to Customer Success Managers for expert guidance. Learn more about onboarding.

Customer Success & Case Studies

Can you share some customer success stories with Hygraph?

Yes, Hygraph has several notable success stories. 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. Explore more customer stories.

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. See all case studies.

Who are some of Hygraph's customers?

Notable customers include Sennheiser, HolidayCheck, Ancestry, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, and Clayton Homes. See more customer stories.

Product Information & Vision

What is the primary purpose of Hygraph?

Hygraph's primary purpose is to unify data and enable content federation, empowering businesses to create impactful digital experiences. Its GraphQL-native architecture removes traditional content management pain points, offering scalability, flexibility, and efficient data querying. Learn more about Hygraph's vision.

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

Hygraph Talks with Delba de Oliveira from Vercel

We caught up with Delba de Oliveira from Vercel to discuss how Hygraph and Next.js work together to build flexible, performant websites with focus on Content-heavy and eCommerce sites.
Emily Nielsen

Written by Emily 

Dec 14, 2021
graphcms-talks-vercel

I recently caught up with Delba, Developer Advocate at Vercel, to talk about how Hygraph and Next.js can work together in building high performance projects for eCommerce platforms with heavy content needs.

The talk kicks off with a high-level overview of Hygraph and Next.js including some recently launched features. Hygraph recently launched scheduled publishing, allowing teams to plan to publish content in the future. Vercel hosted Next.js Conf where the team launched Next.js 12, announcing several features including Middleware and their new Next.js Compiler written in Rust.

We then talked about how the two systems work together to bring content from idea to consumption. A key element was how the type of content and the intended user experience affects the tools and strategies to use when building eCommerce platforms. For example, whether your site should consist of static or dynamic content and the best approach to ensure that the end product is performant and takes SEO into account.

To more clearly illustrate how teams could approach choosing the best strategies for their use case, we examined two common solutions for Hygraph and Next.js, eCommerce platforms, and content-heavy applications.

#Use Case: Content Operations

Since these sites are largely composed of static content which will be the same across users, content is often updated based on current events.

Hygraph Site

We discussed how Hygraph and Next.js work together to bring a smooth user experience. Here are some of the points that we highlighted in the discussion:

Flexibility and Content Velocity

  • Content is quickly and easily updated without development resources
  • Data from external sources can be pulled together and programmatic changes to content can occur with GraphQL Mutations and API Extensions (/docs/remote)
  • Static Site generation with Next.js (/nextjs-cms) and Vercel ensure that content is cached on a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and delivered to users quickly
  • Incremental Static Regeneration with Next.js updates cached data at timed intervals to ensure content out of date
  • Fine-grained permission system of Hygraph distributes edit and publishing rights to the users in a way that match the team structure
  • API routes within Next.js ensure 3rd parties cannot access your API tokens or mutate content
  • Flexible content models in Hygraph enable teams to build structured data that matches their use case
  • Next.js’ flexible per-page data fetching allows you to choose when and how data gets fetched

Localization and SEO

  • Hygraph’s native localization empowers teams to create content for an international audience programmatically or via the UI.
  • With built-in support for internationalized routing, teams are able to provide a list of locales and Next.js will automatically handle routing based on the user's language.
  • Middleware on Next.js 12 allows you to handle redirects at the Edge based on the user's location.
  • Easy content workflows allow teams to continually optimize content and metadata
  • API Extensions enable teams to integrate other solutions with Hygraph to provide additional functionality without duplicating data into Hygraph.
  • Incorporating UI Extensions into Hygraph, allows content operators to interact with data from other platforms to enrich their content.
  • Using Static Site Generation or Server-Side Rendering with Next.js improves SEO and web performance

#Use Case: eCommerce Platforms

eCommerce platforms require large amounts of data to be consistently served across thousands of product pages with low latency. With high-velocity user interactions, creating a smooth user experience shows tangible impact on the overall conversion rates.

Headless CMS eCommerce Starter - Hygraph, Next.js, Stripe, and Vercel.png

eCommerce platforms may have an international audience and need to account for differences in language, currency, and sizing. Data must be up-to-date and teams must be flexible enough to create promotions and react to changes in user trends and inventory.

We discussed more on how Hygraph as a Content Platform for eCommerce using Next.js could address these factors:

Data Organization and Updates

  • With Hygraph, it is easy to create a single source of truth while bringing in data from several external systems using GraphQL Mutations, Webhooks, and API Extensions
  • Building a best-of-breed architecture helps teams build custom ecommerce experiences that fit their needs
  • Hygraph’s powerful, flexible permission system enables granular control over content entries, ensuring data integrity.
  • Next.js is designed to scale applications from one to thousands of pages. Using dynamic routes, teams can create a single template, use Static Generation to populate their content from Hygraph and pre-generate a page for each of their products.
  • Programmatic content creation, in addition to being able to work within the UI, enables teams to keep data consistent and up-to-date.
  • Next.js’ flexible data fetching on a per-page basis enables using server-side rendering for category pages, client-side rendering for the user cart or dashboards, static site generation for marketing pages, and ISR for product pages.
  • Next.js Middleware allows running A/B tests at the Edge instead of client-side. This provides a better user experience by reducing flashes of irrelevant content, layout shift, and improving loading times.

Localization, Speed and, UX

  • Localization in Hygraph makes it possible to have all data for various locales stored in one place, improving the end user experience, locale based publishing with each locale being controllable individually.
  • Using Middleware, Next.js enables you to create a better eCommerce user experience by offering options such as Power Parity Pricingexample, allowing the price of a product to change and apply a discount depending on the user's location.
  • Next.js is designed to be fast for both developers, and users, with lots of automatic optimizations, such as images and fonts, to help keep the platform fast.

#Our Entire Conversation

Check out the full conversation here:

To get a hands-on experience of Hygraph and Next.js 12 for eCommerce or other digital projects, get in touch.

Blog Author

Emily Nielsen

Emily Nielsen

Emily manages content and SEO at Hygraph. In her free time, she's a restaurant lover and oat milk skeptic.

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