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Next.js is infuriating

(blog.meca.sh)
1033 points Bogdanp | 4 comments | 02 Sep 25 06:57 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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b_e_n_t_o_n ◴[02 Sep 25 08:40 UTC] No.45100498[source]▶
Remix (cough react router 7 framework mode cough) is like the polar opposite of this, it's just a Request -> Response handler that you have to build your server around manually. Which I found kind of annoying at first but it does give you the freedom to do what you want.
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adamddev1 ◴[02 Sep 25 09:01 UTC] No.45100621[source]▶
I have been frustrated with Next.js changing it's API so much in the last few years and making things more and more complex and confusing.

I am wondering about giving Remix a whirl for an upcoming forum/CMS rewrite with custom auth. Anybody else have experiences with Remix?

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eknkc ◴[02 Sep 25 09:07 UTC] No.45100667[source]▶
If you don't like changing APIs I'd stay away from the Remix guys. I know it is not like Next but I've used react-router, which had some API churn, later evolved to remix and then back to react-router... Backward incompatible changes are the signature of it. The documentation story is a problem too because of that. Completely different things are named the same and they are now building a new Remix, not even on React as far as I can tell.

Stick with a single version and you'd probably be happy though.

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1. chrisweekly ◴[02 Sep 25 12:38 UTC] No.45102327[source]▶
While the "Remix" renaming / branding is a little confusing, the React Router team has always done a fantastic job delivering a robust solution that properly leverages the web as the platform. Its framework mode (fka "Remix") is simpler and better than Next.js, and more featureful than vite-ssr. Want to mutate data? Use a form. Fetch data? Uses browser-native fetch under the hood. It's all about the fundamentals: HTML and HTTP. You can decide how much clientside JS to ship, and mostly eliminate it. OR, if you want a traditional SPA, go for it. A quick HN comment thumbed on my phone can't do it justice -- but it's very, very good. And its maintainers have a stellar track record. (No vendor bias like w/ Next.js / Vercel.)

FWIW, I've been doing webdev-related work for a living since 1998, and React since 2016.

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2. agos ◴[02 Sep 25 13:50 UTC] No.45103114[source]▶
their issue with breaking changes is from way before the Remix days - React Router introducing massive breaking changes at every major that required significant rewrites was already a running joke of the community
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3. avdwrks ◴[02 Sep 25 15:07 UTC] No.45104075[source]▶
Their documentation was also abysmal the last time I used their product.
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4. Culonavirus ◴[03 Sep 25 07:40 UTC] No.45113223{3}[source]▶
YMMV but the current docs seem fine to me. Though it was pretty bad during the Remix -> RRv7 transition. You can also learn a lot from their github activity (proposals/rfcs/issues). API docs have some additional docs too.

New devs coming in and expecting the framework to be with "batteries included", which it absolutely is not, will also have a bad time. Node apis, ALS/context, handling app version changes on deploys, running the server app itself (if in cluster mode, e.g. with pm2, what that means in terms of a "stateless" app, wiring up all the connnections and pool and events and graceful reloads and whatnot...), hell even basic logging (instead of console.xxx) ... all of that is up to you to handle. But the framework gives you space.

People new to React and/or Node will be confused as hell for quite a bit... in such a cases I would add like 3 months of personal dev time and learning to just wrapping your head around everything... React docs themselves say that you should use a framework if you're using React in 2025 - but it's not that easy. There is a cost, especially if you go the full stack route (client + server + hydration) of having everything under one "typescript roof". The payoff is big, but definitely not immediate.