I have the opposite view. The things you mentioned (componentDidMount, etc.) are actually hard to get right, and class-based components don't help by scattering

I have the opposite view. The things you mentioned (componentDidMount, etc.) are actually hard to get right, and class-based components don't help by scattering the logic all over the place. Functional components force your component lifecycle into a funnel where the lifecycle becomes obvious, because all the inter-dependencies are already there. For componentDidMount, you can replicate this easily with hooks: const Hello = () => { const mounted = useRef(false) useEffect(() => { if (!mounted.current) { mounted.current = true console.log("Mounted!"); } }, []) return <>Hello</> } Extracting anything into a hook is trivial: function useMounted(f) { const mounted = useRef(false) useEffect(() => { if (!mounted.current) { mounted.current = true f() } }, []) } const Hello = () => { useMounted(() => { console.log("Mounted!"); }) return <>Hello</> } Implementing an unmount callback is also trivial. The useMounted() example, coincidentally, shows a real benefit to hooks: Easy extraction of reusable logic. Hooks are like plugins this way. For example, one hook I've written that I use all the time is this [1], it lets you get a callback every time your component resizes. If you were to do this with a class-based component, you'd have to use an ugly HOC, which results in lots of unnecessary wrapping/nesting. For componentDidUpdate, useMemo() is arguably easier to deal with. [1] https://gist.github.com/atombender/b95bbd2014f6a3ec303b843a9bfa0db9 https://gist.github.com/atombender/b95bbd2014f6a3ec303b843a9...