My thoughts on the current state of web frameworks
I've been building web applications for a while now. I started with plain PHP, moved to jQuery, then to React, and eventually ended up working with Go and server-side rendering. Lately, I've been feeling a bit of "framework fatigue".
It seems like every few months there is a new JavaScript framework that claims to be the fastest, the most secure, or the easiest to use. But when I look at the actual complexity of the projects I work on, I wonder if we are over-engineering things.
The problem with Single Page Applications (SPAs)
For a simple blog or a personal portfolio, does it really make sense to ship a 1MB JavaScript bundle just to render some text? I've been experimenting with Go's standard library and plain HTML templates recently, and the results have been refreshing.
With server-side rendering, the browser just receives HTML. It loads instantly. There are no loading spinners, no hydration errors, and no complex state management libraries to learn.
The right tool for the job
Don't get me wrong—React, Vue, and Svelte are incredible tools. If you are building a complex dashboard with real-time data updates, drag-and-drop interfaces, and highly interactive components, a modern framework is absolutely necessary.
But for simple, content-driven websites (like this one), plain HTML and CSS are often enough. Sometimes, doing things the "boring" way is actually the most robust solution. I plan to stick with server-side rendering for my personal projects for the foreseeable future.