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I never understood the appeal of React Router, the simplest library to get rewritten 5+ times, each time forcing their users to learn a new way of doing routing

I never understood the appeal of React Router, the simplest library to get rewritten 5+ times, each time forcing their users to learn a new way of doing routing. It never worked that well either in my experience. The authors seemed addicted to churn and complexity. I do enjoy Remix though. It works well and the various stacks help you get started pretty quickly. So why take the framework that's well respected and loved, and combine it with the library that's known for its churn? That seems like a lose-lose. You create yet another change for people still on React Router and lose the Remix brand. Did the Vercel people manage to execute a psyop on Remix? This doesn't feel like the move.

azemetre 2y ago
I don't know if you're aware but the authors of both libraries (react router, remix) are the same two core developers. I do find their open source libraries a good juxtaposition of engineering philosophy for the tanstack ecosystem. Tanstack seems to favor making things modular over time so it's easier to create bindings in other libraries while also increasing the enhancements whereas it feels like Ryan Florence and Michael Jackson prefer to get features out faster even if it means throwing away previous code. I feel like I'd still be using tanstack/router, tanstack/table, and tanstack/query in 2030 compared to even react itself.
- lazlo_kovacs 2y ago
  Yes, I'm well aware. To be honest I was pleasantly surprised with Remix because of my negative experiences with React Router. But now it seems like they've gone back to churn and cheery messages claiming that this is the best iteration, just please ignore the last 4 attempts.
  - mirthflat83 2y ago
    I feel the exact same way.
gedy 2y ago
> I never understood the appeal of React Router, the simplest library to get rewritten 5+ times, each time forcing their users to learn a new way of doing routing. Yeah I hate to be negative, but honestly I was a lot less excited about Remix once I found out was react-router team. While serving a useful need and I appreciate their work, using react-router in a large production app (MPA) was series of frustrating updates and rewrites once we needed to update (we did not have luxury of just leaving old code as is). The iterative churn and rethinking of design scared us off from Remix for the time being.
madeofpalk 2y ago
I'm sure the React Router/Remix guys are smart, but I don't get the impression that they actually build and maintain real world websites, and the closest they get is a month or two of consulting. They've always been extremely hostile to anything resembling stability, and extremely unreceptive of anyone calling out how unproductive this is.
- kevlened 2y ago
  > extremely hostile to anything resembling stability Remix has one of the best stars/issue ratios I've ever seen in a large project. They have 27k stars for 228 issues (118 stars/issue). Meanwhile next.js has 121k stars for 2678 issues (45 stars/issue). Remix also has a robust future flag system to ensure nothing breaks during transitions. https://github.com/remix-run/remix/issues/4598 https://github.com/remix-run/remix/issues/4598 For larger changes (like the controversial flat routes), they even maintain the old feature so you don't have to upgrade. https://www.npmjs.com/package/@remix-run/v1-route-convention https://www.npmjs.com/package/@remix-run/v1-route-convention I don't think the evidence supports your assertion.
  - sa46 2y ago
    I haven’t used Remix, but I regret choosing react-router due to frequent major version upgrades.
    - timw4mail 2y ago
      ...and completely changing how everything works on each major version change.
    - slimebot80 2y ago
      If you are happy with one version you can just stick to it? You don't have to update your phone and laptop every year, even if you are made to feel so.
      - doomroot 2y ago
dmalik 2y ago
Remix is just react router with a build system. They replaced the build part with Vite. So the core contribution to the community here is just react router. If you watch the react conf video by Ryan it explains it all well.
paulddraper 2y ago
And the router aren't even that good, loads of functions have no useful docs. You just hope someone has asked it on SO.
muteor 2y ago
I too was put off Remix because of react-router, it actually looks pretty good but I was holding off to see if they rewrote the entire thing in The future, and they did! One of my biggest problems with router was not only the constant api changes but the docs being unsearchable because you are never sure which version people are talking about, making all discourse about it a waste of time. We await the outcome of the react framework wars, I still think react is wrong requiring frameworks to supplement its framework.
0xblinq 2y ago
This is all about download counts and who's more popular. That's it.
whalesalad 2y ago
Glad I am not alone in thinking react router has always been a disaster. Jumped ship ages ago to Vue - this was partly the reason - and I find vue router to be pretty great.

azemetre 2y ago

I don't know if you're aware but the authors of both libraries (react router, remix) are the same two core developers. I do find their open source libraries a good juxtaposition of engineering philosophy for the tanstack ecosystem. Tanstack seems to favor making things modular over time so it's easier to create bindings in other libraries while also increasing the enhancements whereas it feels like Ryan Florence and Michael Jackson prefer to get features out faster even if it means throwing away previous code. I feel like I'd still be using tanstack/router, tanstack/table, and tanstack/query in 2030 compared to even react itself.

lazlo_kovacs 2y ago
Yes, I'm well aware. To be honest I was pleasantly surprised with Remix because of my negative experiences with React Router. But now it seems like they've gone back to churn and cheery messages claiming that this is the best iteration, just please ignore the last 4 attempts.
- mirthflat83 2y ago
  I feel the exact same way.

gedy 2y ago

> I never understood the appeal of React Router, the simplest library to get rewritten 5+ times, each time forcing their users to learn a new way of doing routing. Yeah I hate to be negative, but honestly I was a lot less excited about Remix once I found out was react-router team. While serving a useful need and I appreciate their work, using react-router in a large production app (MPA) was series of frustrating updates and rewrites once we needed to update (we did not have luxury of just leaving old code as is). The iterative churn and rethinking of design scared us off from Remix for the time being.

madeofpalk 2y ago

I'm sure the React Router/Remix guys are smart, but I don't get the impression that they actually build and maintain real world websites, and the closest they get is a month or two of consulting. They've always been extremely hostile to anything resembling stability, and extremely unreceptive of anyone calling out how unproductive this is.

kevlened 2y ago
> extremely hostile to anything resembling stability Remix has one of the best stars/issue ratios I've ever seen in a large project. They have 27k stars for 228 issues (118 stars/issue). Meanwhile next.js has 121k stars for 2678 issues (45 stars/issue). Remix also has a robust future flag system to ensure nothing breaks during transitions. https://github.com/remix-run/remix/issues/4598 https://github.com/remix-run/remix/issues/4598 For larger changes (like the controversial flat routes), they even maintain the old feature so you don't have to upgrade. https://www.npmjs.com/package/@remix-run/v1-route-convention https://www.npmjs.com/package/@remix-run/v1-route-convention I don't think the evidence supports your assertion.
- sa46 2y ago
  I haven’t used Remix, but I regret choosing react-router due to frequent major version upgrades.
  - timw4mail 2y ago
    ...and completely changing how everything works on each major version change.
  - slimebot80 2y ago
    If you are happy with one version you can just stick to it? You don't have to update your phone and laptop every year, even if you are made to feel so.
    - doomroot 2y ago

dmalik 2y ago

Remix is just react router with a build system. They replaced the build part with Vite. So the core contribution to the community here is just react router. If you watch the react conf video by Ryan it explains it all well.

paulddraper 2y ago

And the router aren't even that good, loads of functions have no useful docs. You just hope someone has asked it on SO.

muteor 2y ago

I too was put off Remix because of react-router, it actually looks pretty good but I was holding off to see if they rewrote the entire thing in The future, and they did! One of my biggest problems with router was not only the constant api changes but the docs being unsearchable because you are never sure which version people are talking about, making all discourse about it a waste of time. We await the outcome of the react framework wars, I still think react is wrong requiring frameworks to supplement its framework.

0xblinq 2y ago

This is all about download counts and who's more popular. That's it.

whalesalad 2y ago

Glad I am not alone in thinking react router has always been a disaster. Jumped ship ages ago to Vue - this was partly the reason - and I find vue router to be pretty great.