If you are starting your journey on an SAP Commerce Platform for your next storefront, you’ve probably encountered the option to pick between an SAP Commerce Accelerator or a Spartacus-based storefront. So for those unfamiliar with an Accelerator or Spartacus, allow me to provide an overview of these two options for you.
SAP Commerce
SAP Commerce comes with standard Accelerators. So think of them as pre-built templates for your B2B or B2C storefront. SAP Commerce delivers Accelerators for Fashion (B2C), Electronics (B2C), and Powertools (B2B) industry storefronts. In addition, SAP Commerce comes with Industry-specific Accelerators for Travel, Telecom & Media, Financial Services, and Citizen Engagement. Accordingly, you can customize these Accelerators to meet your unique business requirements.
Spartacus
Spartacus is a Java Script-based storefront that allows you to run your Commerce storefront separately from the SAP Commerce platform. So you can truly run your storefront in a “headless” fashion. Spartacus is an open-source project by SAP released in May 2019. For more details please click on Spartacus.
Spartacus is built on modern JavaScript libraries. There it undergoes constant enrichment to become a fully progressive web application (PWA). Though new features are being added to Spartacus via biweekly releases, you are recommended to check the Spartacus Roadmap for updates. For B2C, Spartacus has most of the features available in the B2C Accelerator storefront. However, the B2B storefront is not there yet.
With SAP Commerce, you have three choices to build your storefront:
An SAP Commerce Accelerator (B2B, B2C, or Industry) customized as needed to meet your unique business requirements.
Spartacus JavaScript Storefront, which is a headless progressive web application.
A custom storefront to meet your unique requirements.
In the past, most customers used Accelerators. Now, with the advent of Spartacus, customers have another flexible option. So if you are new to SAP Commerce Cloud, you must check the Spartacus storefront for the features you need and their roadmap for new features.
Are you able to meet most of your requirements with Spartacus? If so, I would highly recommend you implement your storefront using Spartacus instead of an Accelerator for the following reasons. If you implement an Accelerator-based storefront and decide to move to a headless storefront with Spartacus in the future, you will have to completely rewrite your storefront using Spartacus. There is no migration path from an Accelerator-based storefront to Spartacus. Please refer to my previous blog “Why Migrate to a Headless Storefront” for additional insights on Spartacus.
If you have any questions on Spartacus or SAP Commerce Cloud, please connect with team ASAR!