Ask HN: Which React framework for a new project?
I know there are a lot of projects out there these days (Next, Remix, Redwood, Blitz, etc). I'm curious, if you were starting something new today, what would you use?
What do these frameworks do? Isn’t React itself a framework? Why do your frameworks have frameworks of their own???
JavaScript frameworks like Create React App, Next.js, Angular.js do not work like that. They completely compile the code base and inject the said components from above into an html page.
The biggest difference between a component library and a framework is that a framework requires 100% adoption, whereas a library doesn’t.
Going back 20-25 years ago there was web design and back end development. Web design was considered a non-programming visually creative field. That required less work experience to achieve competence and thus was an excuse to pay those people half or less than the programmers. That immediately creates a bias that those people worth less and thus are less worthy of investment. That bias persists even though it was hardly qualified at the time and certainly out-dated now, but it goes to scrutiny of candidate selection/preparation.
Also, back in the day the hot languages were Java and later C#. Both of those were at the time essentially a garbage collected C++ with less overhead. That is what employers were looking for in programming candidates, and so that is what universities delivered. Most programmers come from university CS programs. This is true even today.
None of that prepares people to write JavaScript. Trying to shoe-horn a bunch of unnecessary OOP nonsense into JavaScript is like stabbing yourself in the face, so its nice if there is some tool to fill that gap.
Furthermore, many programmers cannot architect a new original application on their own. There is greater demand for bodies to type code than there exists people of sufficient intelligence and capabilities to fill those requirements. Frameworks are boxed architectures. Its not that everybody who uses or favors a framework is negligently incompetent, but for some people this is absolutely true and then there are people who build their entire careers upon that tool.
As a comparison a carpenter is not a screwdriver user. A carpenter is expected to deliver a product. A framework is a tool, like a screwdriver, but tool users are easier to select than craftsmen.
Afterwards I would recommend Nextjs.
Remix has some great concepts, however Nextjs is more mature when it comes to documentation, tutorials and deployment. So as a general statement by choosing Nextjs you'll have an app in production quicker than if you chose Remix.
If I were starting a project today, where my main customers are Windows desktop users, I would use one of their native SDKs/Frameworks. If I was trying to target iPhone users then I would use Swift... If I was interested in building crufty, unmaintainable, 3-year-rewrite, slug-machine software then I would pick Tauri or Electron... I was into developing a quick MVP then I would use Django or Rails... If I hated myself enough then I would use any of these wheel-reinvention JS microframeworks...
That said, IMO React is so unpleasant to use (compared to alternatives) that I'd urge you to keep an open mind about your alternatives. Svelte, Mithril, Vue, Angular, and many more.
That's not a universally held opinion, and react is worth learning if you are going to try to get a frontend job as it's the dominant way of building frontends today.
Of course not. That's why I said "IMO".
> and react is worth learning if you are going to try to get a frontend job as it's the dominant way of building frontends today.
React is worth learning for employment, sure.
I have been contracted to standup a new React application complete with user guides and landing pages numerous times in recent years. I found that there wasn’t a simple React framework yet that took care of all of the reusable boilerplate code, and allowed you to build an expressive and professional website.
In a more recent project, I was contracted by a startup to build out a React frontend, complete with a user guide and blog. We ended up using Next.js, Docusaurus, and Wordpress to get a quick MVP out the door. This was a pretty good distributed setup, but I knew there had to be a better way to have everything under one project.
Elegant is a fully scaffolded React frontend built with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, and MDX Loader.
Elegant allows me to prototype a quick MVP, and throw it up online super fast by only modifying the .env config file. It’s lightening fast, and already outperforms any Wordpress site. It has a near perfect SEO score, and this is just the beginning.
I’m planning a SHOW HN soon to see what everyone’s thoughts are.
Shameless plug: https://www.elegantframework.com/blog/2023-04-05-elegant-fra...
Nextjs would be great if all I ever needed to do was fetch stuff