Next.js is infuriating

Genuine question - What are the alternatives?

React Router + Express?

Or something else?

React Router v7 is actually awesome and can do SSR if you need it.

We do React Router 7 (previously Remix) with Fastify for a couple of our apps. Both external and internal. I'm really happy with the dev experience. We also have plenty of NextJS floating around here too. Most teams use it as a "better Create React App". There's little use of any of its features. I'm the only one that's used any server-side stuff.

For my team, React Router 7 just gets out of the way. If you use it in framework mode (SSR) you will have loaders and actions, which are things that run on your server. I find it SO much less convoluted. The logger example from the article above is childs play in React Router. Either import your logger and run it in your loader. (You may want to add .server.ts to make it explicitly ONLY server) or inject the logger via context.

React Router is great. Express is ok for its server (hono or fastify have advantages).

Sveltekit