Overview

The variety of Shopware's extension interfaces can be overwhelming, so let us start with a simple overview comparing the three approaches Plugins, Themes, and Apps.

Task	Plugin	Theme	App	Remarks
Change Storefront appearance	✅	✅	✅
Add admin modules	✅	❌	✅
Execute Webhooks	✅	❌	✅	Apps main functionality is to call Webhooks, but Plugins can be implemented to do that as well.
Add custom entities	✅	❌	✅
Modify database structure	✅	❌	❌
Integrate payment providers	✅	❌	✅
Publish in the Shopware Store	✅	✅	✅
Install in Shopware 6 Cloud Shops	❌	❌ (unless delivered via App)	✅	While theme plugins can’t be installed in Cloud, Apps can include themes and provide the same functionality
Install in Shopware 6 self-hosted Shops	✅	✅	✅	Apps can be installed and used since Shopware 6.4.0.0
Add custom logic/routes/commands	✅	❌	✅	Apps extract functionalities/logic into separate services, so technically, they can add custom logic
Control order of style/template inheritance	❌	✅	✅

Plugins

Plugins are the most powerful extension mechanism, as they can be used to extend, overwrite and modify almost any part of the software. You will probably need to write a plugin, if you make profound changes or complex functionalities such as:

• Custom price calculation
• Product imports
• Custom Content/Products
• Connecting 3P identity providers
• Dynamic validations
• Customer tracking

Follow our Plugin Base Guide to learn how to develop a plugin. Also refer to Plugin Fundamentals section.

INFO

If your extension doesn’t need any of the above functionalities and is only about design changes, a simple template adjustment may be the best choice - typically done through a theme plugin.

Apps

Apps are the extension mechanism designed for Shopware’s Cloud environment. Unlike plugins, they don’t run code directly inside the shop system. Instead, they work in an event-driven way and communicate with external services through APIs. This makes them less intrusive, but still very flexible.

You’ll probably want to build an app if your use case involves:

• Integrating with third-party services (e.g. ERP, CRM, marketing tools)

• Providing payment methods and forwarding to external payment providers

• Adding storefront customizations, including themes

• Handling data or processes outside of the shop system (e.g. product synchronization, shipping, analytics)

Follow our App Base Guide and App Starter Guide to learn how to develop an app.

INFO

Apps also provide theme support, so everything you can do with a theme plugin is also possible in an app — making them the way to customize design in Cloud shops.

Themes

Basically a theme can be an app/plugin that aims at changing the visual appearance of the Storefront.

Extensions ├── Plugin │ └── can include a Theme (not for Cloud) └── App └── can include a Theme (Cloud-ready)

To better understand the difference among Plugins and Apps vs Themes, refer to the corresponding article.

A theme lets you perform the tasks listed below.

• Template overrides
• Custom styles
• Configuration interfaces
• Control the order in which styles and templates are loaded

INFO

Note that a plugin can also override templates.

To get started with your first theme, follow our Theme Base Guide.