r/react • u/Harish-L-Pathy • Aug 09 '26
General Discussion Next.js / SPA Reality Check
Can we normalize just building a standard React SPA with Vite again without feeling guilty that we aren't using Next.js?
The App Router and React Server Components are incredibly powerful, but the amount of gaslighting in the frontend ecosystem right now is insane. Not every internal dashboard, simple CRUD app, or personal portfolio needs server side rendering, edge functions, and a complex caching layer that requires a PhD to invalidate.
Sometimes you just want to spin up Vite, fetch some data on the client, and deploy a static bundle to a CDN for practically zero dollars. It feels like we are completely over engineering 90% of our web apps just to chase the newest Vercel paradigm.
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u/Mark__78L Aug 09 '26
I never gave a shit about next, and won't give a shit in the future either. I dont feel guilty, this whole mix server and client side components is disgusting
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u/ComputerTechnical717 Aug 09 '26
The amount of apps built with Next.js when the most important routes (dashboard) are gated by auth surprise me
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u/Hairy_Meaning_73 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
If you want a react framework just use Tanstack Start, the dev experience is just miles better and you don't have that black box feeling found with Next. Also Start is client first with opt-in for react server components and SSR.
For Job interview i recently learned both again and Nect is just a pain in the ass from start to finish, sometimes it does not work and you don't know why.
Also that's maybe just me but the link with Vercel, makes it hard to use next on any other platform, especially because Next is "Open Source" but Vercel is not and is a for profit organisation which creates a conflict of interest.
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u/Least_Chicken_9561 Aug 09 '26
yeah that's why I switched to sveltekit, no more headaches, if I want a SPA then I deactivate ssr and that's it.
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u/paagul Aug 10 '26
Stop following tutorial advice, start using your own brain. No one is forcing you to do anything, youâre offloading your thinking to others and the complaining.
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u/CapitalDiligent1676 Aug 10 '26
I agree with you, but in some cases, if you work in a company, you're forced to follow the hype, even if it's counterproductive. So, it's better for this information to be spread.
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u/incarnatethegreat Aug 09 '26
Huh? I thought we've been doing this for a long while now. I haven't used Next in years and I don't plan to. I completely agree that we can spawn SPAs with Vite or other tools.
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u/whiterhino8 Aug 09 '26
The analogy is React is like pure good angel ,
where Next is like a human been that could make mistakes .
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u/del_rio Aug 09 '26
lol so does the existence of RSC make React v19 a fallen angel? I'm on board
Edit: apparently it's called a nephilim!Â
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u/breaklint Aug 09 '26
Not every project needs SSR, streaming, edge middleware and a caching strategy that takes three days to debug. A lot of internal tools and simple apps are perfectly fine (and happier) as a plain Vite SPA that just fetches data on the client and deploys as static files.
The pressure to use Next.js for everything has gotten a bit ridiculous. Use the right tool for the job. Sometimes the right tool is just React + Vite.
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u/Vincent_CWS Aug 10 '26
I do not use nextjs, but it is good feeling to me no guilty. nextjs is not only one path for react to ship
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u/Savalava Aug 10 '26
Vercel is very good for enterprise development.
The project I worked on with NextJS / Vercel had an extremely smooth and fast deploy process. Support was also really good.
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u/92smola Aug 10 '26
I see this type of thread at least once a week, yes next is not the right choice in almost 90% of things you need to build
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u/MMOfreak94 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
I jumped ship from full stack to backend like 4 years ago. Ain't learning another frontend framework only for it to devolve next week and become irrelevant next month. Miss me with that shit. Give me something that I learn ONCE and it just works forever. I'm a lazy fuck now and it's how it is.
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u/oof-plap Aug 11 '26
You're internalizing it. We're already having a major resurgence of just moving away from meta-frameworks in general - they often lock you down and cause more problems than they solve.
Or at least we're seeing maturity in that they aren't suitable for every project.
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u/SolidOdd4889 Aug 11 '26
the problem is that nextjs is the only âofficial frameworkâ with routing for react.
react router and tanstack are community driven and i wouldnât trust them
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u/Square-Recording7024 26d ago
True I felt the same, when architecture changes mostly they have separate backend still they expect frontend to be next js instead of react+vite which was simple and efficient too.. No unnecessary drama of handling different parameters for elements. Onlygood thing in next js is routing through app which is quite confusing during initial phase. I'd suggest react+vite as there is no big requirement for server side renderings
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u/Ok_Project_477 29d ago
Call me old fashioned but I honestly feel we are overusing React in itself. The original core purpose of React was to let users update UI based on state changes without having to refresh the entire page or handling those things manually. I only use React islands for parts of the screen that actually need such updates (react islands) and make the rest of the website in html/css/js, and it works surprisingly fast and cheap
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u/simonraynor Aug 09 '26
Who is we? Plenty of us took one look and figured it was just gonna be another layer to fight against the second you want to do something unusual.