Rethinking Modern Web Development: Moving Beyond Create React App in 2023

TLDR

Embrace Vite over Create React App for 'vanilla React' applications.

Introduction

In the ever-evolving landscape of web development, the tools and technologies we choose are crucial to the efficiency, scalability, and success of our projects. This blog post examines why it might be time for developers to move beyond Create React App (CRA) in favor of more modern and efficient tools like Vite in 2023.

The Case for CRA

Create React App has been a staple in the React community for years, praised for its simplicity and ease of use. It provides a quick start-up for React projects, integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Babel and ESLint, and is backed by a strong community and ecosystem. For beginners or projects that need to get off the ground quickly, CRA has been the go-to choice.

Performance Drawbacks

However, as projects grow in size and complexity, CRA's performance begins to falter. The build times increase, and the development server becomes sluggish. This deterioration in performance is a significant drawback for larger, more complex projects, where efficiency and speed are paramount.

The Rise of Vite

Enter Vite – a modern, faster, and more performant build tool. Vite addresses many of CRA's shortcomings, especially in terms of performance. It is built on esbuild, offering much faster dependency bundling. Vite's on-demand transpiling and route-based code-splitting significantly improve development server start times and hot module replacement (HMR) efficiency. This makes Vite a superior choice for larger applications and those requiring cutting-edge performance.

Comparing Features

While both Vite and CRA offer similar core functionalities like local development servers and production bundling, the way Vite handles code serving in development is more efficient. Unlike CRA, which relies on webpack and rebuilds the entire app for every change, Vite smartly updates only what's necessary, maintaining high performance even as the project grows.

Why Stick to CRA?

Despite Vite's clear advantages, some teams may still prefer CRA. This preference could stem from a deep familiarity with CRA, existing project setups, or specific workflows. These reasons are valid, often reflect a resistance to change rather than a technical necessity. And, a resistance to embracing new things (not chasing all of the new, shiny things blindly) and learning new things is a sign of larger problems within the developer or within organization.

Conclusion: Embracing Change

In the dynamic field of web development, embracing new technologies is not just an option but a necessity for growth and efficiency. While CRA has served us well, the benefits of modern tools like Vite - especially in terms of performance and scalability - are undeniable. As we move forward in 2023, it's crucial for developers and teams to be open to exploring and adopting these advanced tools to stay competitive and efficient in the digital landscape.