Platform overview

Swell is a headless ecommerce platform designed for performance and customization. It provides all the benefits of managed infrastructure, with a level of flexibility typically available only in open source or custom software. With multiple ways to sell, and custom fields on all models, it's well suited for creative sales processes and highly configurable products.

In this series, we'll be addressing the core concepts behind Swell—with explanations and insights for getting the most out of each one.

Swell stores have a dashboard for admins to manage products, orders, customers, content, and more. There's also a suite of developer tools for working with store data and gaining insight into the system.

The Swell dashboard comes equipped with developer tools that allow you to:

Swell provides an extensive feature set out of the box but can be configured and customized to support myriad use cases—without having to rely on an external database or CMS.

Every store gets its own database with a standard set of data models for standard ecommerce functionality. For solutions that call for specialized data and business logic, you can create your own models and add fields to existing ones using the model editor in the dashboard, or via the Backend API.

See the data model customization guide →

All platform features and functionality we build use this API, and you have the same access to implement your own logic around it.

The Backend API has extensive querying capabilities like including and expanding nested fields on response objects, and data aggregation for custom reporting. Here's a sample of things you can do with Swell's Backend API:

The recommended way to interact with the API is with our Node.js SDK. Alternatively, you can use the REST API directly.

See the Backend API reference →

Swell tracks all changes to store data as events. You can configure webhooks to be sent when any entries are updated, including on app-defined or custom models. Real-time webhooks can also be used to set fields on orders and cart for example, before being submitted. App functions can be configured to respond to events and to implement many different types of integrations and custom logic.

Storefronts are the front-end interface through which customers interact with your Swell store. Storefront Apps provide the foundation of these interfaces, although you may also configure externally hosted sites to serve as a storefront in a headless approach.

See the Storefronts section →

Swell.js is a frontend-focused Javascript SDK for building custom storefront sand checkouts. Generate dynamic page URLs and fetch products, settings, navigation, and content.

See the Frontend API reference →

Swell offers a visual theme editor accessed through the admin dashboard. This tool allows you to create, edit, and publish content to your storefront in real-time through a visual interface.

Through the storefront's editor, you can manage various aspects of your storefront such as:

Swell offers an ever-growing library of third-party apps and services integrations for customizing your workflow with the tools of your choice. From taxes to email marketing and payment gateways, we have everything you need to operate and manage your store with confidence.

Now that we've introduced all the aspects of the platform, we're ready to dive into some more specific concepts and the role they will play in your store. Next up is a closer look at Storefronts and the options that are available for your store's frontend.