There's an important distinction between upgrading, replatforming, and rehosting — and getting it right matters for scoping the work correctly before you commit.
- Rehosting moves your existing setup to different infrastructure without changing the architecture
- Replatforming migrates from one commerce platform to another (Magento to BigCommerce, for example)
- Upgrading modernizes the storefront layer while keeping the backend platform intact
Moving from BigCommerce Stencil to Catalyst is an upgrade. Your BigCommerce catalog, pricing, orders, customer data, and integrations stay in place. What changes is the frontend: how it's built, how it performs, and how marketing and development teams work with it.
What Stencil Limits That Catalyst Resolves
Developer bottlenecks. Stencil's Handlebars.js templating system requires developer involvement for most storefront changes. Marketing campaigns, landing pages, and promotional content changes wait in development queues. Catalyst with Makeswift integration enables marketers to create and publish content independently, without developer support for routine changes.
Frontend performance ceiling. Stencil storefronts are server-rendered from BigCommerce's infrastructure, with performance bounded by the platform's rendering stack. Catalyst uses Next.js with SSR, SSG, and edge delivery — enabling Lighthouse scores and Core Web Vitals that Stencil-based storefronts structurally can't achieve.
Integration constraints. Stencil integrations route through BigCommerce's app marketplace and middleware layer. Catalyst's API-first architecture allows direct GraphQL and REST API connections to any third-party system, without platform intermediation.
Scalability during traffic spikes. Peak traffic events — promotions, holidays, product launches — can affect Stencil storefront performance because the frontend and backend share infrastructure load. Catalyst's independently deployed frontend absorbs traffic spikes at edge infrastructure without affecting backend commerce processing.
The Technical Shift: Stencil vs. Catalyst
| | Stencil | Catalyst | |---|---|---| | Rendering | Server-rendered Handlebars | Next.js SSR/SSG/ISR | | Architecture | Monolithic, tightly coupled | Headless, API-driven | | Frontend stack | Handlebars.js, SCSS, jQuery | React, GraphQL, TypeScript | | Content editing | Developer-dependent | Makeswift visual editor | | Hosting | BigCommerce-managed | Independent (Vercel, Netlify, custom) | | Integration | Marketplace apps | Direct API connections | | Performance | CDN/caching dependent | Edge-delivered, Core Web Vitals optimized |
The Upgrade Process
A Stencil-to-Catalyst upgrade typically follows eight steps: audit the current storefront, define migration strategy, set up the Catalyst project, customize components and integrate third-party systems, configure Makeswift for the marketing team, test performance and accessibility, deploy to edge infrastructure, and monitor post-launch.
Timeline varies by storefront complexity and integration count — straightforward storefronts can migrate in weeks; heavily customized operations with complex integration stacks require more time.
The key is treating the upgrade as a program, not a project. SEO continuity, integration validation, performance benchmarking, and marketing team enablement are all workstreams that need structured attention alongside the core build.
Arizon Digital has a proven track record executing BigCommerce Catalyst upgrades for mid-market operators. Talk to us about what the upgrade scope looks like for your specific storefront and integration requirements.