VP Product at Hyvä | Magento Expert | Community ContributorJohn Hughes
John Hughes is the VP of Product at Hyvä, where he oversees the development of Hyvä Commerce, Enterprise, and more. Based in Shrewsbury, UK, John has been working with Magento since 2012. Before joining Hyvä, he served as Technical Director at Fisheye, helping grow the agency and deliver high-performance eCommerce solutions.
He is passionate about fast, user-focused online stores and empowering both developers and merchants to get the most out of the Magento ecosystem. A fan of bold design and even bolder colours, John is famously obsessed with all things orange – possibly due to his long-standing love for Magento.
He was also a founding Board Member of Mage-OS and a contributor to the Magento Association’s content committee, helping shape the future of the platform and its community
Meet Magento Poland 2025
Building open source competitive advantages in the world of SaaS
In the digital age, e-commerce platforms based on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model dominate the market thanks to their simplicity, speed of implementation, and affordability. On the other hand, open source software has long offered flexibility and full control over the code, which is crucial for large and custom projects. How can this be used optimally? The discussion focuses on the question: in an increasingly standardized world of SaaS, do the openness and flexibility of open source platforms still constitute a key competitive advantage? Do they give companies a unique opportunity to stand out in the market, build custom solutions, and avoid vendor lock-in? This topic explores how companies can use open source software not only to create, but also to scale and innovate, gaining unique advantages that cannot be achieved in a closed SaaS platform ecosystem.