Architecture
Composable, but only where it earns its keep
Headless is not a goal. The goal is a platform where the parts that change often can change often, and the parts that must not break are isolated from the parts that will. We decompose exactly as far as that requires and no further.
- Vendor selection scored against your catalogue size, pricing rules, markets and team capability
- Service boundaries drawn along business capabilities, not along team convenience
- Event driven communication so back office latency never becomes storefront latency
- Contract testing between services, so a breaking change fails in the pipeline and not in production
- An exit plan for every vendor in the stack, written down before you sign
The shift
What actually changes when you decompose
Monolithic suite compared with a composable platform
Figure 05 / architecture comparisonFigure 05. The decision is not technical fashion. It is whether the cost of extra moving parts is smaller than the cost of a single release train.
Selection
How we choose the pieces
Every vendor in the stack is scored against the same criteria and the score is written down. You get the model, not just the recommendation, so you can challenge it.
| Layer | Options we work with | Decides the choice |
|---|---|---|
| Commerce engine | commercetools, Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, custom services | Catalogue size, pricing complexity, B2B account hierarchies, market count |
| Content | Contentful, Storyblok, Sanity, WordPress headless | Editor workflow, localisation depth, preview needs, governance |
| Search | Algolia, Elasticsearch, Typesense, Constructor | Catalogue size, merchandising control, relevance tuning, budget |
| Product data | Akeneo, Pimcore, inRiver, Salsify | Attribute model, supplier onboarding, channel syndication |
| Payments | Adyen, Stripe, Mollie, Klarna, Worldline | Markets, local methods, scheme fees, reconciliation and payout needs |
| Runtime | AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Vercel | Existing estate, data residency, in house operations capability |
Table 03. We are not a reseller for any of these. If the right answer for you is the platform you already own, the report will say so.
Next step
Tell us what is slowing your commerce platform down
Send the brief. A principal architect reads it, then you get a written technical assessment with options, effort and risk inside five working days. No sales call required first.