Removing React.js from the codebase and adapting Htmx for UI interactivity (2023)
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
A forum developer replaces React.js with HTMX to eliminate code duplication and complexity.
The Misago forum project's maintainer describes problems with a dual Django/React architecture: pages rendered twice (Django templates + React components), JSON serialization slowing responses, and large JS bundles (e.g., vendor.js 679KB, misago.js 615KB).
The solution is to drop React for HTMX, a library that swaps server-rendered HTML fragments on interactions, keeping only server-side Django templates for most UI and adding small JS islands where needed. The migration happens incrementally through 2024, with early steps already reducing misago.js size by 85KB gzipped.
What commenters are saying
The thread splits sharply. Critics argue HTMX repeats the mistakes of Angular 1.0 and declarative approaches that don't scale, and that for complex state (e.g., chat, notifications) you still need a proper client-side framework. Supporters counter that the Web is fundamentally hypermedia, that most sites are simple CRUD where HTMX reduces complexity and improves mobile performance, and that React is overkill for those cases. One commenter notes landing pages on a $1.6M/month ad budget saw huge improvements in full-page loads after switching from React to cached HTML.