Choosing a Template
Every Vivreal site starts from a template. Templates provide the design, page structure, and functionality for your website. Choosing the right template upfront saves time and ensures your site has the features you need.
Available Templates
Ecommerce Store
The Ecommerce Store template (internal key: ecommerce) is a full storefront designed for selling products online.
Best for: online stores, product catalogs with purchasing, digital goods, subscription products.
Includes:
- Product listing pages with filtering and sorting
- Individual product detail pages with image galleries
- Shopping cart with quantity management
- Stripe-powered checkout flow
- Order confirmation page
- Price display with currency formatting
- Variant selection (size, color, etc.)
- Responsive design, SEO metadata, light/dark mode support
The Ecommerce Store template requires a configured Stripe integration in your group. Set up your Stripe connection in the Channels section before deploying this template.
Showcase
The Showcase template (internal key: showcase) is a flexible presentation-focused template for content-driven sites.
Best for: portfolios, blogs, company websites, informational pages, landing pages.
Includes:
- Responsive homepage with customizable sections
- Collection-driven content pages (blog, team, FAQ, etc.)
- Navigation header and footer
- SEO-optimized page metadata
- Mobile-friendly responsive design
- Light and dark mode support
The Showcase template works well when your primary goal is presenting content. It pulls data from your collections and renders them in clean, readable layouts.
More templates coming
Two templates are live today. Additional templates are in development and will be added to the template picker as they become available.
Template Comparison
| Feature | Showcase | Ecommerce Store |
|---|---|---|
| Collection content pages | Yes | Yes |
| Responsive design | Yes | Yes |
| SEO metadata | Yes | Yes |
| Custom homepage sections | Yes | Yes |
| Product listings | No | Yes |
| Shopping cart | No | Yes |
| Stripe checkout | No | Yes |
| Variant support | No | Yes |
| Requires Stripe integration | No | Yes |
How to Choose
Ask yourself these questions:
- Am I selling products? If yes, choose Ecommerce Store. It includes cart and checkout functionality that would be complex to add later.
- Do I need a simple content site? If you're building a blog, portfolio, or informational site, the Showcase template keeps things simple and fast.
- Will I add commerce later? If you might sell products in the future but aren't ready yet, start with Showcase. You can create a separate site with the Ecommerce Store template when you're ready.
You can run multiple sites from the same group. It's common to have a Showcase site for your blog/marketing pages and an Ecommerce Store site for your store, both pulling from the same collections.
Template Updates
Templates are maintained by the Vivreal team. When template updates are released (new features, bug fixes, design improvements), they are automatically propagated to your site's branch. You don't need to manually update your template.
Next Steps
Once you've chosen a template and deployed your site, you may want to connect a custom domain or configure site settings.