I built a website that was super simple using server side rendering using Django. Then I got a bunch of feature requests that made it less simple and the client-side javascript started getting crazy spaghetti code.

I actually somewhat knew React before this project but besides not wanting to overcomplicate things I was hesitant because I didn't like pure client-side rendering. Then I learned NextJS makes it easy to mix/match client-side rendering and server-side rendering so I just switched to that.

So now, even for a simple website, I'll probably start with React because I don't want to dig myself into a needless hole.

I wrote about the experience here:

https://www.billprin.com/articles/why-i-ditched-django-for-n...

And yes that post upset some people who thought I should use htmx, but React is actually pretty easy and simple. Now most of my websites are React because I know it so it's easy and simple to use what you're used to.

Also, "I did it in React because that's the way it's done" isn't the worst reason because you benefit from that popularity, e.g. some library you need will have clear examples of integrating with React.

I think the frontend and JS community have certainly gone off some crazy rails at points, but I also think there's a popular sentiment on HN exaggerating how off-the-rails things have gone, usually expressed by people who don't actually develop many modern-looking websites. Most of the trends have gotten popular for somewhat rational reasons, and even that stuff that has gotten a little crazy like an explosion in dependencies, is really just about tradeoffs e.g. lots of dependencies cause lots of problems but also enable code re-use so it has pros and cons.