Header and Footer with Experience Fragments

[nsvsrk]

Hi all,

Why do we typically create Header and Footer with Experience Fragments?

Is there an advantage?

My understanding is that Experience Fragments are to be created when we want the experience, not just data, so that even non AEM front ends could display it as it is.

Appreciate all your responses.

Thanks,

RK.

[nsvsrk]

One advantage I could think of is managing Multi Sites.

We could use the same Experience Fragment for all site headers.

Thanks,

RK.

[BrianKasingli]

We often use Experience Fragments (XFs) to create reusable headers and footers across multiple pages and templates. This is because XFs allow us to build full sections of a page—including layout and styling—and reuse them consistently. So instead of rebuilding the same header or footer for every page, we create it once as an XF and include it wherever needed. This saves time, ensures consistency, and allows easy updates—change the XF once, and it's reflected everywhere it's used. Also, given that your page context is in an Country and Language combination, if that XF structure exists, using the XF Adobe core component, the correct XF will resolve itself.

Another big advantage is that XFs are channel-agnostic, meaning they can be used not just on AEM pages but also in other places like SPAs, mobile apps, or email. They're exportable as HTML or JSON, so even front-end frameworks like React can consume and render the header and footer as-is. Plus, XFs support personalization and A/B testing with Adobe Target, making them a smart choice when tailoring content for different audiences.

You can follow this tutorial to see how it's done: 

Implementing Header and Footer in Editable Templates using XF Part-1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4wYDIyUxqY 

Implementing Header and Footer in Editable Templates Part-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6vcay2ETw8

[Vishal_Anand]

@nsvsrk There are multiple reason for this but let me start with major ones. Reusability and modularity. AEM follows ATOM concept for their components. When it comes to experience fragments, they recommends that if you have same structure with design to be replicated across multiple areas of the projects, use it as much as possible.

Since header, footer, campaign CTAs, etc. mostly follow same UI and structure across the site, it is very easy to maintain via Experience fragments. If you need versions out of it, version control is super friendly in AEM. Rest Brian has covered really well in his comment about the YT tutorials to learn more about it.