I am suspect of any argument that says React is better or worse than jQuery. The < or > sign will depend on what problem you are trying to solve. React and opt

I am suspect of any argument that says React is better or worse than jQuery. The < or > sign will depend on what problem you are trying to solve. React and optionally react-redux is more complex in itself, but it is really trying to tame app complexity you'd get with lots a jQuery sprinkled around. With react, you can reason about the state of the app, and know the current view is calculated by a (hopefully!) pure function f that maps state to the view. Don't really see the issue with HOCs. I am not seeing why they are a terrible idea. I think they are quite elegant actually. SSR I might have to agree with you. I haven't yet understood why it is needed honestly. Is it SEO or something? Or is it speed of deep linking into a 'page' of your SPA. As for the compilation steps - meh. This sort of stuff is done a lot on the back end in larger projects too - pre compilation steps and wat not. It's not a big deal with a bit of webpack watching.