Meet Magento Poland 2025: Open Source vs SaaS & Hyvä's future
Some conferences feel like going through the motions. Meet Magento Poland isn't one of them. With almost 300 people turning up to what's now the longest-running Meet Magento event, it's clear the community has staying power. This wasn't just another tech gathering – it was Tech Week in Poznań, and the energy in the room proved something important: open source events still matter.
Hyvä Theme becoming a standard
When John Hughes mentioned that Hyvä Theme has been announced open source, the room erupted. Proper applause. That felt good.
It's one thing to make a business decision. It's another to see the community immediately get why it matters. Back to our roots, and everyone in that room understood what it means for Magento's future.
The panel discussion later – with John alongside Ignacio Riesco from WAM Global, Mikołaj Król from Sylius, Sergej Derzap from Amasty, and Maciej Kalkowski from Centuria – dug into the real question: can open source compete with SaaS?
SaaS vs Open Source
The panel didn't pull punches. SaaS is easy to sell – it looks good on the first date. Quick setup, low initial cost, everything seems simple. But as we put it: "Do you prefer to rent, or do you prefer to own?"
SaaS is buying a promise with no ownership. Combining SaaS solutions gets tricky in the long run. We're not doing enough marketing for open source – we need to explain it in simpler words.
The reality? SaaS connects pricing to your revenue or product count. Open source means you control the costs, and they go down over time, not up.
SaaS is brilliant for getting started. But when you're in a regulated industry, working in B2B, running a marketplace, or planning long-term? Open source gives you the control you need. As someone in the audience noted: "When the SaaS platform goes down, your shop is closed. With open source, you control the backup."
Hyvä CMS
John presented Hyvä CMS, being a part of Hyvä Commerce, and the feedback was immediate. What matters for the users we spoke to: the preview function is the biggest win. Scheduling, drafts, import/export – all in one place, built by one company. That consistency matters. The widget approach feels familiar to anyone who's worked with default Magento, but much cleaner.
What stood out
Kuba Zwoliński opened the event with something that stuck: "To share knowledge, to compete – but also to share knowledge." That's the Magento spirit in one sentence.
Tabitha Karta from Vendic talked about community-based growth (with a memorable pineapple story). Her point: when your community grows, your business grows. Not through selling harder, but through shared value, mutual support, and co-creation.
Peter Jaap Blaakmeer gave a reality check on AI agents. Spoiler: they're not magic. AI is probabilistic, code is deterministic. Senior developers benefit most because they have the knowledge to check the output. The room had loads of questions – clearly a subject people care about.
Fabian Schmengler broke down B2B ecommerce. His takeaway: B2B customers don't want to be inspired. They want to get stuff done efficiently. Accuracy matters more than speed. Good data, clear pricing, delivery information – that's what converts.
Why this matters
Meet Magento Poland reminded us why open source endures. It's not just about the technology – it's about the people building it, using it, and improving it together.
As one panelist put it during the SaaS debate: "Sooner or later, the vendor will take advantage of you if you're vendor-locked." Porter's Five Forces isn't just business school theory – it's what happens when you don't own your stack.
The numbers tell part of the story: Hyvä is growing the way Magento grew 10-15 years ago. The e-commerce technology in this space that's actually expanding right now, as Maciej Kalowski noticed.
But the real story is the room full of developers, merchants, and agency owners who showed up because they believe in what we're building together.
What's Next
Poznań was brilliant. The conversations, the debates, the moment when that open source announcement landed – that's what makes these events worth crossing time zones for.
Thanks to Kuba Zwoliński, Maciej Kalkowski, Jakub Winkler, and everyone who made it happen. And thanks to Mathias Schreiber from the Magento Association for supporting the community that makes all this possible.
See you at the next one. 👋
