The e‑Commerce Lock‑In Problem

Every online retailer knows the pain of building a storefront that’s tightly coupled to a single back‑end—switching from Shopify to Magento can mean rewriting the entire UI, re‑training staff, and paying hefty migration fees. Small teams especially feel the strain: they need a fast, flexible front‑end that can adapt as the business grows, without surrendering data privacy or incurring massive licensing costs.

Enter Daffodil, an open‑source, Angular‑centric framework that decouples the presentation layer from the commerce engine. By providing a driver architecture and a suite of ready‑made UI packages, Daffodil lets you spin up a Progressive Web App (PWA) storefront today and swap the underlying back‑end tomorrow—all while keeping the codebase clean, testable, and future‑proof.

Why Choose Daffodil?

• Backend‑Agnostic Architecture – A unified driver system lets you connect to Magento, Shopify, or any custom GraphQL/REST API without rewriting UI components.
• Progressive Web App First – Built‑in service‑worker support, offline caching, push notifications, and home‑screen installability give shoppers a native‑like experience without the App Store overhead.
• Angular Ecosystem Compatibility – Leverages Angular’s mature tooling, dependency injection, and RxJS patterns, so existing Angular teams hit the ground running.
• Modular Package Library – Over 30 first‑party packages (e.g., @daffodil/cart, @daffodil/checkout, @daffodil/search) let you cherry‑pick only what you need, keeping bundle size minimal.
• Zero Vendor Lock‑In & Full Data Ownership – Because the front‑end is completely separate from the commerce engine, you retain complete control over customer data, analytics, and SEO.
• Community‑Driven & MIT‑Licensed – Backed by Graycore and a growing open‑source community, you get regular updates, transparent roadmaps, and the freedom to contribute or fork.

Spotlight on Key Features

Getting Started

If you already have an Angular project, adding Daffodil is as simple as a single CLI command:

npx ng add @daffodil/commerce

The schematic will:

1. Install the core @daffodil/* packages you need.
2. Prompt you to select a driver (Magento, Shopify, or a custom one).
3. Configure NgRx stores, routing, and service‑worker support out‑of‑the‑box.

Quick Demo

After the installation, run the development server:

ng serve

Visit http://localhost:4200 to see a fully functional PWA storefront backed by the demo driver (https://demo.daff.io). The demo showcases product listings, cart functionality, and checkout flow—all powered by Daffodil’s modular components.

For a deeper dive, check the official Getting Started guide: Getting Started Docs.

Comparison with Proprietary Alternatives

Bottom line: Daffodil offers the developer freedom of an open‑source framework while delivering the performance and UX benefits typically reserved for premium SaaS platforms.

Community & Support

• Discord – Real‑time chat with maintainers and contributors.
• GitHub Discussions – Ask questions, share patterns, and request features.
• YouTube Channel – Recorded webinars, live coding sessions, and release overviews.
• Contribution Guide – Follow the Contributing Guidelines to submit PRs, report bugs, or improve docs.

Call to Action

Ready to break free from back‑end lock‑in and deliver a lightning‑fast, native‑like shopping experience? Dive in today:

• Explore the demo: https://demo.daff.io
• Read the full documentation: https://www.daff.io/docs/guides/getting-started
• Star the repository: https://github.com/graycoreio/daffodil/
• Join the community: https://discord.com/invite/daffodil

Build the next generation of e‑commerce storefronts with Daffodil—where flexibility meets performance, and open source empowers every retailer.