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Ask HN: How does one build large front end apps without a framework like React?

94 points thepianodan | 3 comments | 17 Oct 25 10:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

I had a mind-blown-moment when I learnt that Obsidian was built without any frontend JS framework. ( https://forum.obsidian.md/t/what-framework-did-the-developer-use-to-create-obsidian-desktop-application/30724/11 )

The benefits, I can see.

    JS frameworks move really quickly, and when we're working on a large, long-term project, it sucks when big breaking changes are introduced after only a couple of years. Sticking to slow-moving web standards (which are quite mature by now) increases the longevity of a project.

    And the stability also means that more time is spent on delivering features, rather than on fixing compatibility issues.

    There is also the benefit of independence. The project's success is not tied to the framework's success. And it also makes the project more secure, from supply chain attacks and such.

    Because there is no "abstraction layer" of a framework, you also have greater control over your project, and can make performance optimizations at a lower level.

    I feel not using a framework can even make us a better developer. Because we know more of what's going on.
There are benefits to using frameworks too, I'm not here to challenge that.

But this alternative of using none... it seems rarely talked about. I want to learn more about building large (preferably web-based) software projects with few dependencies.

Do you have any suggestions on how to learn more about it? Are there any open source projects you know which are built this way? It needs to be large, complex, app-like, and browser based. I'm more interested in the frontend side.

Thank you!

1. bestest ◴[17 Oct 25 11:46 UTC] No.45615609[source]▶
It depends on the target product.

I'm working with JS for already 25 years. Tried all of the frameworks, and continue on doing it. And every time I try something new, the refactoring flow turns most of them into NextJS (if it's very UI rich or customer facing or something very web-oriented), or Vite+React+Tailwind (client) and Hono (backend) if it's more of a tinker toy needing more custom solutions.

The boilerplate with NextJS is cleanest (compared to all the other frameworks) and API is the most straightforward one, and you can safely ignore the vendor lock in. Its just a pretext to hate on NextJS. They all have some kind of a "vendor" lock in. Be it a vendor-or-a-specific-approach-or-whatever-lock-in.

And Vite+React+Hono — simplest to set up for quick experiments, and very powerful with minimal boilerplate. Will probably create a starter for this one, as I have been using this stack quite a lot lately.

EDIT:

You can pretend vanilla JS is all you need, but then your app grows, then you suddenly need types, and state, and more events and their handlers, and SSR or something else. Thus React has been the most stable bet for quite a while for me now.

replies(1): >>45615904 #
2. TimTheTinker ◴[17 Oct 25 12:21 UTC] No.45615904[source]▶
I'm curious if you've tried Lit on the frontend, and if so, what you think about it.
replies(1): >>45616128 #
3. bestest ◴[17 Oct 25 12:47 UTC] No.45616128[source]▶
I have tried it. And would like to reiterate – everyone should use what they like.

But for me Lit is too OOP. It feels like Angular. And that all in turn feels like Java. It's just so heavy and constrained (not saying it's a bad thing though). Too much boilerplate for me.

The whole paradigm is different and does not match my preferences. And while subjective, I do believe React with TS, Tailwind, zod, react-query and zustand is the best stack delivering the best balance of boilerplate and code-delivery and easy of use and entry level and dx.