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Comment by haffi112 | Hacker News Reader

When should I use RedwoodJS and why?

https://github.com/redwoodjs/redwood/blob/main/README.md

The readme goes into details more in depth than I will, but as a dev raised on javascript and cloud tech, I like redwood for probably the same reasons that devs raised on ruby like ruby on rails. I get to keep using all the tech i'm comfortable with but the tooling is all preconfigured and the dev experience is smooth and optimized.

My reading is that this is an all-in-one package of the current best practices stuffed into a jar. It saves you some decision-making but also ossifies your platform into a fixed point in the hype cycle. It's probably a solid platform and get you to market a bit quicker but that isn't really a bottleneck for anyone as far as I can tell.

IMO the main value of a framework like this isn't to save you time. That's what they advertise on the homepage, but I suspect that's just because it's an appealing concept to a lot of people. I think the real benefit is an increase in the chance that you build your app in a way that's sustainable. It's a pooling of experience and feedback on choices to create a whole that might not be flawlessly perfect for what you are building, but is likely worlds better than the disaster that usually occurs when you let the in house devs make too many choices.

> ossifies your platform into a fixed point in the hype cycle

Definitely true, but they have gone for some pretty established stuff here. The only ones I can see possibly being contentious in like 5 years or whatever timeline you want are Prisma and GraphQL, but even for those I'd bet on them still being sound choices for a long time. Also presumably the framework continues to develop (Rails 7 is a LOT different than Rails 1.), but that is a bit of a bet on it's adoption.

As a dev I get the appeal of something more flexible that lets you make your own choices, but I think that almost universally ends up being a curse rather than a blessing.

You make some great points here!

> I think the real benefit is an increase in the chance that you build your app in a way that's sustainable

Yes, indeed! We discuss "long-term maintainability" often in the project README and during interviews. This is one of the primary lessons Tom learned when building GitHub on Rails.

> ossifies your platform into a fixed point in the hype cycle

We are learning how to communicate these things better, but conventions, tight integration, and a "golden path" do not equate to lock-in of any kind.

If you read through other comments, you'll find a lot of examples where devs are using alternatives for the API as well as front-end libraries.

If your other option is "raw" React, Next.js: You'll do less yak-shaving and have to manage less engineering complexity versus using Next.js and rolling your own db/auth/testing/access control.

If your other option is Blitz: you get a larger core team, GraphQL if you like that, and fancier generators.

If your other option is Django/Rails/etc: it is like Rails, but integrates better with the frontend.

Django/Rails comparison is a bit short I would argue, Redwood lacks a lot of their backend capabilities (Active Storage, mailing solution, jobs, Action Cable).

Add simplicity to your list. Tools like htmx and hotwire appeal to me because they cut down on the towering stack of fast-moving parts.

Have you tried Unpoly? It's like htmx but more "high level". I've used it for several projects and it is one of the more underrated tools out there. On my latest project.im using it in combination with Alpine.js on a Laravel application and I'm loving it.

Blitz doesn’t use GraphQL, one of the unique things about it.

>If your other option is Django/Rails/etc: it is like Rails, but integrates better with the frontend.

And worse with the backend.

Let's not pretend running code in the server are issuing queries to a database is all you do in the backend.

Further, what is it? Maybe I'm not a very good reader, but after looking at the website multiple times I'm not at all sure what RedwoodJS is. Comments here suggest it is some sort of React framework ...?

Did you look at the main website? https://redwoodjs.com

It is indeed a web app framework, based on React, GraphQL, Prisma, Storybook, Jest, and with many integrations for auth, logging, etc.

> Did you look at the main website? https://redwoodjs.com

I didn't. Thank you! It would be nice if this information was on the link posted to HN though, or maybe the link should be changed to something more clear.

From their main website (https://redwoodjs.com)

“Redwood is the full-stack web framework designed to help you grow from side project to startup.”

But why Redwood rather than some other framework? (I'm just interested in learning what opinions people have on here)

Core team member here. Several reasons:

1. Redwood tightly integrates more of what you'll need as your app evolves: Storybook, Jest, Auth, Deploy, Logging, and a lot more.

2. A first class GraphQL experience so you can start from day one with the idea that you'll have multiple frontend clients (web, mobile, desktop, CLI, etc) so you only build your backend once.

3. Declarative data fetching with "cells" that make using that GraphQL backend super simple.

4. A community of builders and startup founders intent on helping each other succeed.

5. An amazing tutorial and set of documentation.

Speaking of the tutorial, that's the best way to get started if you're curious to see how Redwood feels in action!

Thanks, I'll check it out! ^^

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