Wix Headless splits a website in two. Wix runs the business side: products and inventory, orders and checkout, payments, form submissions, members and logins, bookings, a content manager, and the dashboard where the owner sees all of it. The front end, the part visitors actually see, is custom code. We build that front end with Astro and host it on Wix.
Why we build on it
- The owner keeps a dashboard they can use. Orders, products, customers and form messages are in Wix’s dashboard and phone app, not in a database only the developer can open.
- Payments, checkout and hosting are Wix’s job. Card processing, security patches for checkout and server upkeep are handled by a large platform, not by us maintaining servers.
- The design is fully custom. No template constraints and no drag-and-drop layout limits; the site looks the way the business needs it to look.
- Speed and search control. Pages are lean HTML with only the JavaScript they need, every title, description, canonical address and piece of structured data is ours to set, and nothing extra loads unless a visitor asks for it.
- It grows into an app. Member logins, approval queues, staff screens and data integrations are code on the same site, not a pile of plugins.
Our guide on Wix Headless vs the Wix editor explains the differences in more detail, including who should stay on the regular editor.
What we have learned building on it
Wix Headless has quirks, and knowing them is most of what you pay a specialist for:
- Dynamic pages render on request. Product, category and article pages that are pre-built at build time return “not found” on Wix’s hosting, so we render them on request.
- Wix keeps
/sitemap.xmland/robots.txtfor itself. We serve our own complete sitemap at another address, set robots.txt through Wix’s API so it names that sitemap, and add the sitemap in Search Console by hand, because Wix’s own submit call only sends/sitemap.xml. - Wix adds its own title and canonical tags. We remove the duplicates in the site’s middleware, so every page has exactly one of each.
- Security headers come from the site’s code, not a headers file, because the hosting adapter overwrites that file.
- Secrets live in Wix’s environment settings and only reach the live site after a release.
- Rate limits are real. Bulk jobs that move thousands of products are throttled so Wix does not start refusing requests, and a busy moment shows a “try again” page instead of a false “not found”.
Limits to plan around
Wix Stores holds up to 50,000 products, and hidden products count. A category tree holds 1,000 categories across four levels. Bulk operations run 100 items per call, and very large catalogs can outgrow the site’s media storage, which changes where product photos are served from. None of these are dealbreakers for most stores, but they shape the plan. Our guide to Wix Headless limits for large stores walks through each one.
What we build with it
- Online stores with large catalogs, including stores synced with eBay.
- Member databases and custom web apps on Wix Members and data collections.
- Contractor and service business websites with forms that reach a person.
- Sites moved from the regular Wix editor, or from other platforms, with every old address redirected.
When it is not the right fit
If the owner wants to rearrange page layouts by dragging blocks around every week, the regular Wix editor is the better tool. If a catalog is heading well past 50,000 products, we will say so before the build and talk through other options. And a simple one-page site does not need custom code at all. We would rather tell you that than sell you a build you do not need.
