How many Shopify apps is too many?

When a client tells me the store is slow, the first thing I look at isn't the theme. It's the list of installed apps. In the overwhelming majority of cases, that's where the answer is.

How an app slows a store down

Most apps insert a script into your theme that loads on every page view. That script usually downloads more files from someone else's server, waits for a response, and only then does the page finish rendering. With one app it's imperceptible. With twelve it means your store is waiting on twelve external servers, each with its own uptime and its own latency.

Worse: scripts often survive uninstallation. Shopify tries to clean up after itself, but apps that wrote directly into the theme leave remnants in the templates. I've seen stores loading scripts from apps that were removed two years earlier.

How to find out which one it is

The switch-off test

The most reliable method. Measure the speed, disable one app, measure again. Tedious, but it gives you exact numbers. Do it on a copy of the theme, never live.

Browser developer tools

Open the Network tab, load a product page and sort the requests by size and time. Third-party domains you don't recognise are apps. You'll see precisely how much each one downloads and how long it takes. This is the same first move as the wider performance audit.

The theme templates

Go through theme.liquid and look for the blocks of code apps inserted there. Some can be safely removed once you no longer use the app — but back up the theme first.

Apps that can usually be replaced

• Pop-ups and banners. A few lines in the theme do the same thing without an external script.
• Countdown timers and "only 5 left". The data is already in Shopify; you just need to display it.
• Size guides. A metafield on the product and a section in the theme — see metaobjects.
• Simple upsells. Related products can be handled in the theme.
• Fees and rules in checkout. Shopify Functions instead of three apps.
• Discount highlighting. Liquid can do this by itself.

Conversely, the apps worth keeping: payment and shipping integrations, accounting connectors, reviews with a real database behind them, marketplace feeds, and loyalty programmes with their own logic. Those do something the theme genuinely cannot.

A practical rule

Twice a year, go through the app list and answer two questions for each one: Do I use it? and Is the value clearly greater than its price and its speed cost? Where the answer to either is no, the decision makes itself.

For a store paying €200 a month in app subscriptions, 40–60% of that can typically be replaced by theme work or one custom feature. The development pays for itself within a year, and the store gets faster in the process.

That calculation is the same one behind custom apps versus third-party apps — the difference is that here you're not adding a feature, you're removing four subscriptions.

Before you install the next one

1. Measure the speed before installing.
2. Install, test, measure again.
3. If the difference is more than a few tenths of a second, ask whether it's worth it.
4. Apps you trialled and don't use, uninstall now — not "at some point."

Every app is a small compromise. The problem isn't one compromise. It's that over three years you accumulate twelve and can't remember agreeing to any of them.