Last week Meet Magento Netherlands 2025 took Amsterdam by storm, and as a longtime person in the community I’m still buzzing. The event was lit with community energy, exciting tech talk, and even some literal sweetness. I had the privilege of attending (and speaking!), and I want to share the highlights, from a fantastic pre-event dinner to the game-changing announcement that had everyone shook. If you missed it, no worries, here’s a full recap of the vibes, talks, and announcements that made this Meet Magento unforgettable.
From Chaos to Clarity: My Talk on Magento Docs 📚✨
One of the big moments for me was stepping on stage for my own talk: “From Chaos to Clarity: How AI and Community Collaboration are Reshaping Magento Documentation.” This topic is super close to my heart. Magento’s documentation has historically been, well, chaotic, developers often grapple with outdated or fragmented dev docs, and merchants get lost in the overly feature-centric admin guides. In my session, I unveiled a new approach to documentation that combines community-driven structure with AI-assisted content generation . In short, we’re leveraging the power of open-source collaboration and GPT-driven tooling to overhaul how Magento docs are created and maintained.
Specifically, we announced the launch of the new Magento 2 Merchant documentation site (📖 now live at docs.magento-opensource.com).
This is a project I worked on with a team of seven other amazing contributors. Our goal was to replace the old, confusing merchant guide with goal-driven, problem-oriented content tailored for non-technical store owners . Instead of a dry list of features, the new Merchant Docs are structured around real tasks and problems merchants face (think “How do I set up a flash sale?” rather than “Configuring X module”). We built the framework using Markdown and automation, took inspiration from Laravel’s docs, and even added handy “Edit on GitHub” buttons so anyone in the community can suggest improvements. It truly was a collaboration between Mage-OS and the Magento Association’s documentation team to make Magento info more accessible and outcome-oriented for everyone .
The audience response was awesome, I saw nodding heads (and maybe a few relieved faces) as I walked through how we used AI (shoutout to GPT 🧠) to generate first drafts of docs and then refined them with human expertise. This approach lets us scale documentation faster without sacrificing quality. I also dropped a sneak peek of what’s coming next: perhaps interactive AI assistants for docs, and more community editing features. The crowd’s feedback and excitement made all those late nights writing and reviewing totally worth it.
And oh, speaking of sweet rewards... as if the applause wasn’t enough, event speakers got gifted the famous Van Stapele cookies from a local Amsterdam bakery. These cookies are legendary! Dark chocolate dough with a gooey white chocolate core, crisp around the edges but soft and melty inside . I can confirm: they tasted like happiness. 😋 It was a small gesture that made us speakers feel extra appreciated (and on a sugar high for the after-party).
AI Agents and Developer Perspectives 🤖💡
Meet Magento is never just about one talk, there were tons of fascinating sessions. One that had everyone talking was by Peter-Jaap Blaakmeer (CTO of Elgentos), who shared how his team built a custom AI agent for their agency. Essentially, they created a kiosk-style AI system where clients can test out new e-commerce features autonomously, without a human in the loop. Watching that in action was like peeking into the future. It’s not science fiction, it’s happening now!
Peter-Jaap also touched on a really interesting observation about how different developers approach AI. He noted that junior devs tend to jump in and do everything with AI, but often lack the experience to verify if the AI’s output is actually good. On the flip side, senior devs are more reluctant and cautious about using AI, perhaps a bit skeptical or just set in their tried-and-true ways. The room chuckled in recognition because we’ve all seen this dynamic. No cap, I can confirm that observation. I’ve noticed the same thing. Junior developers treating ChatGPT like their personal stack overflow for every task, and senior folks side-eyeing the AI suggestions like “Hmm, not sure about that.” It’s a new kind of generation gap in tech. Peter-Jaap’s talk sparked great conversations about finding the right balance: encouraging experimentation with AI’s productivity boosts, while also teaching critical thinking so devs (junior and senior alike) can judge AI outputs properly. If anything, it reminded us that tools come and go, but a developer’s mindset and judgment are irreplaceable.
Hyvä Theme Goes Open Source – The Big Announcement 🚀
Now for the biggest banger of Meet Magento NL 2025: the announcement that Hyvä Theme is becoming free and open source! 🎉 This news dropped during the conference and literally had the entire Magento crowd buzzing. For context, Hyvä is a popular ultra-fast frontend theme for Magento 2 that until now required a paid license. Willem Wigman (Hyvä’s founder) took the stage and announced that starting with Hyvä version 1.4, the theme will be fully open-source and free . Yup, you read that right - no more license fees, Hyvä’s goodness for everyone!
This is a huge win for the Magento ecosystem. According to the official announcement, Hyvä is being relicensed under open-source OSL 3.0 & AFL 3.0 licenses, which means it can now be used, customized, and redistributed by anyone free of charge, even in commercial projects . In practice, developers, merchants, and agencies worldwide can adopt Hyvä without barriers – creating custom themes, tweaking it to their needs, and sharing their own improvements. In a community that’s all about open innovation, this move was downright inspiring. The crowd’s reaction in Amsterdam said it all: a lot of us were literally cheering and high-fiving. The feeling was that Magento finally has a modern, high-performance default theme option that’s open to all.
The announcement was not just about code; it felt like a statement about the future of Magento Open Source itself. Hyvä going free strengthens the ecosystem’s momentum and underscores the value of our community-driven approach. Many attendees (myself included) see this as a turning point – an opportunity to revitalize Magento for a new generation of stores that demand speed and slick UX out of the box. One attendee on Reddit quipped that this could be the first step to “replace Luma as the built-in theme” for Magento, with others immediately hoping Mage-OS will ship Hyvä by default .
Hyvä + Mage-OS: A Bright Future 🌅
As Vice President of Mage-OS, I was especially hyped about the Hyvä news. (Mage-OS, for those unfamiliar, is the community-driven Magento Open Source distribution focused on keeping Magento innovative and alive.) My immediate thought was: we have to get Hyvä pre-installed in every Mage-OS build. And you can bet I’ll be advocating for that! Replacing the old Luma theme with Hyvä in Mage-OS would give every new Magento store a state-of-the-art frontend from day one. No more “install Magento and then immediately spend days making it not look like 2015” – instead, you’d start with a sleek, fast storefront ready to customize. This synergy between Hyvä and Mage-OS could be a game-changer for adoption. It lowers the barrier for newcomers (who now get a great storefront for free) and energizes developers (who can contribute to an open theme stack).
The entire announcement has me optimistic about the Magento ecosystem’s trajectory. It feels like pieces of a puzzle coming together: community-led documentation (📝 check), modern frontend (🎨 check), an open-source Magento fork pushing improvements (✅ check), and a passionate global community tying it all together. If Meet Magento Amsterdam 2025 showed one thing, it’s that Magento is far from “dying” – it’s evolving. With moves like Hyvä’s open-sourcing and Mage-OS’s continued innovation, the platform’s future looks bright and full of vibes. I’m confident we’re heading into 2026 with more unity, more creativity, and a renewed sense that, as a community, we can build amazing things together. 💪
(And of course, none of this would be possible without the people – a huge shout-out to everyone I chatted with at the event, the organizers, sponsors, and volunteers. The Magento community spirit is 100% alive and thriving, and I’m proud to be part of it.)
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