5 better ways to create a react app

Kinshuk — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 11:13:14 +0000

You are new to web development and want to learn react.js but most of the tutorials and even chatGPT tell you to use an official tool called create-react-app. But it's a trap, if you use it you already failed your react developer admission test. The problem with it is that it is slow in development and it is painful to integrate popular tools like TailwindCSS and TypeScript.

There are tons of better options to get started with react and the modern ecosystem. Let's have a look at the 5 better ways you can create a react app without CREATE-REACT-APP.

1. Instant Development Environment

Absolute easiest way to experiment and start learning to react or any frontend framework is with an instant development environment like StackBlitz and CodeSandbox. These are web-based tools which allow you to run react in a browser without needing to manually install many of the dependencies on the system and deal with the things like module bundlers.
These are powered by web containers so you can even run backend code like node.js, next.js and the entire development environment spins up in milliseconds
You can continue your work even when you lose the Internet connection midway and your apps never go to sleep and have no bandwidth limits - share the URL with as many friends, colleagues, and communities as you’d like!

2. Vite

Vite is a build tool that aims to faster and leaner development experience for modern projects. Vite aims to address performance issues like unreasonably long wait(sometimes up to minutes) to spin up a dev server and hot module replacements(HMR), file edits which takes a couple of seconds to reflect in the browser. The slow feedback loop can greatly affect developers' productivity and happiness.
Vite supports importing .ts files out of the box. It uses esbuild to transpile TypeScript into JavaScript which is about 20~30x faster than vanilla tsc. The HMR updates can reflect in the browser in under 50ms.
Vite has low-level API for server rendering which is a great option for SPAs

3. Nx

Nx can build standalone react apps along with extra features that you won't find in vite.
You have the option to choose your own bundlers like webpack and RS while setting up your project. It is set up with TypeScript by default and you can also choose your preferred CSS preprocessors like SASS, LESS, styled-components etc.
Its main features are all about scaling complexity like it does task caching and can even distribute that cache on the cloud which means another team member or continuous integration server on the other side of the world can use the computation in the cache instead of doing the same work over and over again.

4. NEXT.JS

If you want more that just the single page application then the react rendering framework Next.js comes in. Next.js enables you to create full-stack web applications by extending the latest React features, and integrating powerful Rust-based JavaScript tooling for the fastest builds.
Building an app with Next.js provides you with special directories like Pages or app that can structure routing for a multi-page app. Pages can be rendered on the server to improve the SEO and performance.
Other main features include image optimization and middleware that you likely want on a serious production project.

5. Remix

Next.js and Remix are competing for last couple of years which is awesome for react developers because now you have two excellent rendering frameworks to choose from. Biggest difference is related to data fetching, Next.js use react server component while remix does not.
Both frameworks solve many of the same problems but there are many subtle differences in the developer experience. For example features like nested layouts and streaming are in beta in Next.js while they are fully stable in Remix so it is one step ahead of the game here when it comes to innovation.

5 reasons to learn and use React in 2023

Kinshuk — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:40:50 +0000

The React.js framework is an open-source JavaScript framework and library developed by Facebook. It’s used for building interactive user interfaces and web applications quickly and efficiently with significantly less code than you would with vanilla JavaScript.

In React, you develop your applications by creating reusable components that you can think of as independent Lego blocks. These components are individual pieces of a final interface, which, when assembled, form the application’s entire user interface.

Let’s get started and see the power of React!

1. Better performing application

One of the major reasons why React is used widely is its performance. The prime cause why React applications perform so well is the presence of Virtual DOM. Well, the virtual DOM has nothing to do with learning React, but it should be known to every React developer what is happening behind the scenes.

Virtual DOM is a copy of the original DOM and instead of re-rendering the original one, React first renders the virtual one. This gives React the upper hand on many other frontend frameworks.

So if the performance of React applications is better, then it is worth learning it. After all, the performance of the final product matters the most.

2. React has great features

React is fast, modular, and scalable. Without getting too technical, some of the top features include:

A slight learning curve (if you know JavaScript already)
Reusable components
Data binding
High-performance thanks to the vDOM 📈
Support for web and mobile apps with React Native
Dedicated tools like React Developer Tools for easy debugging

React also supports advanced features you might not need today but you'll be glad for later:

Server-side rendering
Efficient data-fetching
Caching
Error-handling
SEO-friendly
Dedicated deployment tools to make your live website as efficient as possible

3. Tons Of Applications in the Web Development Field

React.js has different applications for all applications such as web apps, mobile apps(IOS and Android), and desktop apps with cross-platform support You can use ReactDOM for web applications, and React Native can be used to develop mobile applications for both IOS and Android and Electron can be used for cross-platform hybrid desktop applications.

What we love the most in the applications of React is the flexibility it offers. You can combine React.JS with other tools that will help in laying the foundation for complex applications. Furthermore, you can pick a library and use it to display a page or view, etc. Because of its versatile applications, it has been used in some of the most renowned applications like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Airbnb, Netflix, and so on.

4. React has a safe future

Perhaps, the biggest reason to learn React is its safe future. Switching to another technology is not easy. Neither is to make that decision. But if switching to new technology guarantees a safe future, then it is worth it.

React's popularity is only increasing and in the future, React is going to grow. So learning to react in 2023 is an excellent decision.

5. Community support:

React has a strong and active community of developers who provide support, resources, and documentation for the framework. Their active contribution of diligent experts to the ecosystem of tools, libraries, and frameworks remains the key reason for React.j’s success.