Best headless frontend for Norce Commerce

Why this list exists

Norce Commerce ships as an API-first commerce backend without a storefront. Every Norce merchant has to decide separately how to build the frontend that sits in front of the Norce API. This is not optional. The decision shapes the delivery timeline, the ongoing engineering cost, and the specific set of integrations available on day one.

This piece compares the practical options for the Norce frontend layer. The list is not exhaustive — any modern JavaScript framework can be pointed at the Norce API given enough engineering. It focuses on the options that actually show up in Norce merchant shortlists in 2026: a fully custom Nuxt or Next.js build, Frntkey, Alokai, and the legacy Jetshop templates for merchants still on the older Jetshop-derived stack.

Evaluation criteria

Before ranking anything, the criteria that actually matter for a Norce merchant selecting a frontend:

• Launch timeline. How long from project kickoff to a production storefront handling real orders. This is the constraint that dominates most Norce evaluations, particularly for merchants migrating from Jetshop with a fixed shutdown window.
• Integration coverage. The Nordic commerce stack (Klarna, Kustom, Svea, Walley, Ingrid, Voyado, Lipscore, Hello Retail) has to work on the storefront. Options where these are pre-integrated reduce delivery scope significantly.
• B2B depth. Norce is B2B-capable natively. The frontend needs to surface B2B flows: logged-in mode, customer-specific price lists, invoice payment, order history per account, quickorder, shopping lists. Frontends that treat B2B as an afterthought struggle in production.
• Team requirements. How many frontend engineers, for how long, at what skill level. This determines whether the option is realistic for a mid-market merchant versus only viable for enterprise with a dedicated frontend team.
• Three-year total cost. License fees, implementation cost, hosting, and ongoing maintenance summed over three years. Upfront cost alone hides the ongoing engineering commitment that some options require.

Option 1: fully custom Nuxt or Next.js build

The traditional approach for enterprise-scale Norce projects. A team builds the storefront from scratch on Nuxt.js, Next.js, or another modern framework, connecting to the Norce Commerce API through purpose-built adapters. Full control over every layer of the storefront.

Best fit: Enterprise merchants with dedicated in-house frontend engineering, storefront requirements that are genuinely distinctive, and a three-year horizon that justifies the upfront build.

Rated against the criteria:

• Launch timeline: 4 to 9 months for a non-trivial storefront. Longer if the team is small or the requirements shift mid-build.
• Integration coverage: everything gets built from scratch. Klarna, Walley, Voyado, Lipscore, Hello Retail — each is a scoped integration project.
• B2B depth: whatever the team chooses to build. B2B on Norce requires deliberate design work to surface account hierarchies, price lists, and invoice payment.
• Team requirements: at minimum 2–3 senior frontend engineers, one BFF/backend engineer, one designer, ongoing engineering capacity after launch. Realistic for enterprise, not for mid-market.
• Three-year cost: highest of the four options. Build cost plus ongoing engineering cost accumulates.

The right choice when the storefront is a real competitive differentiator and the team can sustain it. The wrong choice when the merchant needs a working storefront in a reasonable timeline with a bounded budget.

Option 2: Frntkey

Frntkey is a frontend-as-a-service productized for Norce specifically. It ships a Nuxt.js storefront with pre-built adapters for the Norce Commerce API, Storyblok bundled as the CMS, and the full Nordic integration set (Klarna, Kustom, Svea, Walley, Ingrid, Voyado, Klaviyo, Rule, Lipscore, Hello Retail, Retain24, Awardit) pre-wired.

Best fit: Mid-market and enterprise-adjacent Nordic merchants on Norce who want a fast launch with the standard Nordic stack, without a large in-house frontend team.

Rated against the criteria:

• Launch timeline: 6 to 12 weeks. The storefront, BFF layer, and integrations are already built. Project work covers backend connection, brand customization, and any project-specific requirements.
• Integration coverage: highest of the four options for the Nordic stack. Klarna, Walley, Voyado, Lipscore, Hello Retail, Ingrid, and the rest are configuration, not integration.
• B2B depth: strong. Frntkey ships with Norce B2B flows in the baseline — logged-in mode, customer-specific price lists, invoice payment, order history, quickorder, shopping lists.
• Team requirements: no dedicated frontend team required. The merchant provides content, branding, and product/pricing decisions. The delivery is handled by Nordic Web Team.
• Three-year cost: predictable. Monthly SaaS subscription plus setup project. Hosting on Vercel billed at cost. No ongoing engineering headcount required to maintain the codebase.

Frntkey is the recommended frontend in Norce's Jetshop migration program, endorsed by Norce's CPO Michael Hallberg. That endorsement earns its place through the criteria above rather than being asserted independently. The fit is strongest for merchants whose storefront requirements are serious but not so distinctive that the productized frontend needs substantial rework.

Option 3: Alokai

Alokai is a headless frontend framework, formerly known as Vue Storefront. It provides libraries, boilerplates, and a Middleware orchestration layer for building custom storefronts on top of supported commerce backends. Alokai's supported backend list includes commercetools, SAP Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, Shopify, and others.

Norce-specific note: Norce is not on Alokai's list of natively supported backends. A Norce project on Alokai requires custom adapter development to connect Alokai's Middleware to the Norce Commerce API. This is real work, not a configuration change.

Best fit for Norce specifically: Enterprise merchants with dedicated frontend teams who prefer Alokai's framework model over a productized frontend, and who accept the custom Norce adapter as part of the project scope.

Rated against the criteria:

• Launch timeline: similar to a custom build (4 to 9 months) because the Norce adapter is not pre-built. The Alokai framework is faster than starting from scratch on Nuxt, but the Norce integration work is comparable.
• Integration coverage: Alokai's ecosystem includes payment and CMS integrations, but the Nordic-specific set (Klarna B2B invoice, Walley, Voyado, Lipscore, Hello Retail) requires additional integration work per project.
• B2B depth: Alokai supports B2B patterns, but the Norce B2B surface has to be mapped through the custom adapter. Not out of the box.
• Team requirements: dedicated frontend team, similar to a fully custom build.
• Three-year cost: license plus implementation plus ongoing engineering. Similar to a custom build in scale.

Alokai is a strong option for enterprise merchants running on Alokai's natively supported backends. For Norce specifically, the missing native adapter reduces the practical advantage compared to a fully custom Nuxt build.

Option 4: legacy Jetshop templates

Merchants who arrived at Norce through the Jetshop acquisition are still running the older Jetshop frontend templates against the Norce backend. This is a transitional state, not a target state. Norce is winding the Jetshop templates down. New Norce merchants are not offered them, and existing Jetshop-template merchants are being migrated to modern frontends through the Norce Jetshop migration program.

Best fit: None going forward. Merchants still on Jetshop templates should be planning their migration path.

This option is included in the list because it is the current state for a large share of Norce merchants. It is not a recommendation for a new frontend selection.

Summary ranking

For a Norce merchant selecting a frontend today, the practical ranking against the stated criteria:

1. Frntkey. Best fit for the largest share of Norce merchants: mid-market to enterprise-adjacent, Nordic-focused, standard commerce requirements. Wins on launch timeline, integration coverage, B2B depth in the baseline, and three-year total cost.
2. Fully custom Nuxt or Next.js build. Best fit for enterprise merchants with dedicated frontend teams and genuinely distinctive storefront requirements. Highest cost and longest timeline, but full control.
3. Alokai. Best fit for enterprise merchants who prefer the framework model but have to accept the missing native Norce adapter as project scope. Similar cost and timeline to a fully custom build.
4. Legacy Jetshop templates. Not a going-forward option. Merchants still on this stack should be planning their migration.

The ranking is not universal. A merchant with a distinctive storefront requirement, a dedicated engineering team, and a preference for full custom control could reasonably reverse the top two. The ranking above reflects the fit for the largest share of Norce merchants, not every Norce merchant.

What to actually do next

For most Nordic merchants on Norce (or migrating from Jetshop to Norce), the shortest path to a working headless storefront is to evaluate Frntkey for Norce first. If the fit is right, the productized model wins on every criterion that matters. If the storefront requirements exceed what Frntkey's packaging allows, the conversation shifts to a fully custom Nuxt build — which the Nordic Web Team can also deliver if the packaged option is not the right fit for the project.

For the deeper three-way comparison with the two other productized options in the European market, see Scayle vs Alokai vs Frntkey. For the head-to-head with Alokai specifically, see the Alokai comparison page.