This article explains the difference between Liquid and JSON templates, why Shopify introduced JSON templates in the first place, and what it means for your day-to-day ability to manage the site without relying on a developer for every change.
Shopify theme development has its own terminology, and if you’re not fluent, it can seem impossible to understand. Terms like “Liquid”, “JSON templates”, “sections”, and “Online Store 2.0” sound like complex website development terms, but the truth is simpler: Liquid and JSON templates are just two parts of the same system, and understanding how they fit together will help you make better decisions about your theme, your content workflow, and what you should expect from a Shopify agency.
If you run a Shopify store, you do not need to become a developer. But you will be able to make better decisions if you can understand enough to spot whether a theme is modern, maintainable, and built to support growth.
Our Ultimate Guide to Shopify Website Development has more help, guidance and information on how Shopify works, and what to look for in a developer.
Liquid: the language that makes Shopify themes dynamic
Liquid is Shopify’s templating language. It is what allows a theme to pull data from your store and display it in the right places. When a product page shows a title, price, images, variant options, and availability, Liquid is usually involved. When a collection page loops through products, it is Liquid doing the looping. When a theme shows different content based on stock status, customer location, tags, or metafields, Liquid is the logic layer making those decisions.
For most merchants, the key point is this: Liquid is what makes a Shopify theme “aware” of your store’s content and structure. It is not just a styling tool and it is not optional. Even the simplest themes rely on Liquid, because without it the theme would be nothing more than static web pages.
Where Liquid sometimes got a bad reputation is when theme builds relied on it for everything. Older Shopify themes often hard-coded layout decisions into Liquid templates so that simple actions such as changing a page layout required editing the template file directly. Adding a new content block might require a developer to create a new template variation. This created a bottleneck as the store could only change as quickly as development time allowed.
That is where JSON templates come in.
JSON templates: the structural layer that gives merchants flexibility
JSON templates arrived with Online Store 2.0 and changed how page structure can be managed. Instead of defining an entire page layout directly in a Liquid template file, Shopify allows a JSON file to define which sections appear on a page and how they are configured.
In plain terms, JSON templates act like an assembly plan. They tell Shopify which sections to show, in what order, and with what settings. Those sections are still powered by Liquid, because Liquid is what renders the actual content, but JSON templates allow the layout to be controlled through Shopify’s Theme Editor rather than through code.
This is why modern Shopify stores feel easier to manage. It is no longer necessary to create a new hard-coded template for every slight variation of a page. If a marketing team needs a new layout for a campaign landing page, a theme built properly with sections and JSON templates can support that without requiring development work every time.
That flexibility affects how quickly a store can respond to campaigns, merchandising needs, and seasonal changes. In practice, stores that use Online Store 2.0 well tend to move faster without breaking things.
The relationship between Liquid and JSON templates
A useful way to think about this is that Liquid is the engine, while JSON templates are the chassis. Liquid does the rendering, and decides what data to show and how to output it. JSON templates decide which sections to include on a page and how those sections are arranged.
Most of the time, the decision isn’t over Liquid instead of JSON templates, but instead how modern and flexible your theme architecture is. A theme can still use Liquid templates, but if it relies heavily on old-style Liquid templates for layout, it may be more rigid. A theme using JSON templates effectively allows more layout control through the Theme Editor.
For store owners, the question is not “which one should we use?” The question is “is our theme built in a way that gives us flexibility without sacrificing quality?”
What changes for merchants when a Shopify theme uses JSON templates properly
The most obvious difference is control. A well-built Online Store 2.0 theme allows you to add, remove, and reorder sections on more page types, often including product templates, collection templates, and content pages. That means you can build layouts that suit different product categories or different campaign needs, without creating a separate theme or calling a developer each time.
It also changes how content becomes structured. When developers build sections with useful settings and metafield support, the admin of your site becomes a flexible and responsive system, rather than a place where you have to paste blocks of text into a single description field and hope it looks fine.
This usually improves consistency too. Instead of “building” pages differently each time, you use repeatable blocks. That keeps your brand coherent and reduces the risk of pages gradually drifting away from design standards.
There is also a commercial impact in that faster content iteration supports your marketing, better site structure supports clearer SEO signals, and cleaner theme architecture often supports improved performance, because the theme tends to be less reliant on heavy page builder scripts.
Where merchants can still run into trouble
Flexibility is not automatically a good thing. Some themes and agencies interpret “flexible” as “give every section the maximum options”. This can produce a Theme Editor experience that is overwhelming and a website that looks inconsistent because different team members build pages differently.
A better approach is controlled flexibility. Merchants want the ability to build the pages they need, but within guardrails. A strong Shopify agency designs those guardrails by creating sections that suit your brand, limiting options to sensible variations, and providing documentation so the team can use the system confidently.
Another common issue is legacy themes upgraded poorly. Some stores technically use an Online Store 2.0 theme but still rely on old patterns. They may have JSON templates in places, but the theme doesn’t take advantage of sections properly, or it ignores metafields entirely. This is when merchants often feel they have “upgraded” but still do not have the management freedom they expected.
How to tell if your Shopify theme is modern
If you want to sanity-check whether your theme is built well, start with how you work day to day. Are you able to build landing pages without development help? Can you create different layouts for different product types? Do you have consistent, structured areas for key product content like sizing, materials, delivery, FAQs, and technical detail? If the answer is no, your theme may not be using Online Store 2.0 architecture effectively.
When speaking with a Shopify agency, ask:
- How they approach section design
- How they will use metafields
- Whether they build templates with JSON
- What that means for your ability to change layouts later
- How they stop the Theme Editor becoming a free-for-all
A specialist should be able to explain their approach clearly in plain English.
The short version: what you actually need to know
Liquid will never go away, as it is core to Shopify theming. JSON templates do not replace Liquid; they make layout more manageable by putting structure into a format the Theme Editor can control. For merchants, the real advantage is speed and autonomy, and when a store is built properly, your team can move faster without constantly pulling developers into routine content work, and the theme remains maintainable rather than sprawling.
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: the difference between Liquid and JSON templates is not just a technical detail – it is a usability and scalability issue. A modern theme architecture makes it easier to market, easier to maintain, and easier to grow your business, so finding a Shopify developer who can achieve this is essential. We carefully architect our Shopify builds to take advantage of the strengths of both JSON and Liquid – if you’d like to find out how we can help, get in touch.
