New React docs pretend SPAs don't exist anymore
React just released their new docs at https://react.dev/. While it looks great and packs a lot of improvements, one section that caught the community’s attention is “Start a New React Project”. The strongly recommended way to start a new React project is to use a framework such as Next.js, while the traditional route of using bundlers like Vite or CRA is fairly strongly discouraged.
Next.js is a great framework, and it’s rise in popularity is due in a large part to the return of SEO optimization via Server-Side-Rendering (SSR) within the collective developer conscience. And it definitely does make sense to use a framework that provides SSR for static sites and pages that rely on SEO.
But what about typical Single Page Apps (SPAs)? Dashboard-like tools that live behind the auth (and don’t need SEO at all), and for which React was originally designed, still very much exist.
The new docs make a pretty strong claim for using a framework when starting a new React project. Even if you read through the “Can I use React without a framework” section (hidden behind a collapsed toggle by default), you have to go through a wall of text convincing you why not using a framework is a bad idea, mainly due to the lack of SSR. Only then, in the end, comes the piece mentioning other options, such as Vite and Parcel:
