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The decision on the table is which architecture your next storefront is built on, and it is hard to reverse. A storefront carries years of custom work, integrations and content. Moving it later means rebuilding the front end, so the choice should follow how your business changes its shop, how many people will maintain it and what that operating model costs over its lifetime.
A monolith keeps storefront and commerce logic together
In a monolithic set-up, the pages customers see and the logic behind them, such as baskets, prices and promotions, live in one application and go live in one release. On Salesforce B2C Commerce, SFRA works this way: the storefront code runs on the commerce platform itself as cartridges, the modules that extend it.
That coupling has a clear upside. One codebase, one deployment and one set of skills keep the operation simple. Its cost shows when the storefront needs to change often, because every front-end change travels through the same release, test and approval cycle as the commerce logic.
Headless puts an API layer between the two
A headless architecture splits the storefront into its own application that asks the commerce engine for data through APIs. On Salesforce, Composable Storefront (PWA Kit) is that separate front end, and it calls B2C Commerce through the Salesforce Commerce API. The same APIs can serve an app, in-store screens or other touchpoints.
Headless does not require microservices, a point the two terms often blur. The commerce engine behind a headless storefront can remain one platform, which is the usual case on Salesforce. The full picture of headless commerce on Composable Storefront covers how the pieces fit together.
Release cycles show the difference first
The first practical difference is how often you can release. With headless, the front-end team can ship on its own schedule, while back-end changes follow theirs. A monolith releases everything together, which is slower but keeps testing to one moment.
Independent releases bring a new discipline. The storefront depends on API behaviour, so every back-end change has to respect what the front end expects. Teams that manage this well version their integrations and test the contract between the two. Teams that skip it trade release queues for production incidents. Our Build teams stay on a project from start to finish, with no rotations, so the people who defined those contracts are still there when the first back-end change tests them.
Hosting and operating cost follow the architecture
A monolith on Salesforce runs on one hosted platform, so there is one environment to operate. A headless storefront adds a second runtime. Salesforce Managed Runtime hosts Composable Storefront and takes care of servers and scaling, as explained in what Managed Runtime takes over.
Hosting is rarely the large line. The cost that grows is people: front-end developers, test automation and monitoring for a second application, for as long as it runs. It scales with the amount of custom front-end code, which is why a lean component set matters more in headless than in a monolith.
