Access data from external services in Theme App Extension

[connyg]

I understand that I can access data through Theme App Extensions and App Proxies.
My Theme App Ext would request something from the proxy, the proxy delivers the data/json or liquid, the frontend renders it.

Now the question:
So far I have only seen client side / browser side JS that would call the API.

Am I assuming correctly that with the standard Shopify Frontend, Theme App Extensions and App Proxies, this is the only way to go?
And for data being queried server side (not client side) I need to go with the Hydrogen Frontend (or any other that is hosted as complete web application of some kind)?

[Weaverse · Accepted solution]

Hey there!

In the usual Shopify way with Theme App Extensions and App Proxies, we mostly use client-side JavaScript. It grabs the data and displays it in the browser.

But, if you're curious about getting data on the server side (it has some neat benefits!), Hydrogen is what you're looking for. It's built with Remix and is great for server-side stuff. This can make your site faster and let you do some cool things on the backend before your users see anything.

So, a quick recap: With standard Shopify, it's mainly client-side fetching for third-party data. Want server-side handling for that data? Look at Hydrogen.

Hope that helps!