Is it me, or does $600,000 a year (presuming that $3M is over the 5 year period) seem a bit of a weak contribution from a company with a $1.8 trillion market cap that's regularly making $100M-$250M TC pay packages for AI scientists?
Like, I get that nothing is _owed_ here, but this feels like more of the same tragedy of the commons open source problem we see: tools that millions of apps depend on, barely propped up, and in this case, the child of a megacorporation that could easily create a proper evergreen endowment rather than a milquetoast token contribution to save face.
Oh man, having Vercel on the board is a bummer. Not only because they want to take React a way I disagree with, but it's clear that the CEO is on the wrong side of history in other matters as well (lots of recent drama).
That's one way to sell a open source project I guess. Not only did Vercel really fight to not have any mention on the React docs about using React _without_ Vercel, but downright to using wording to imply that if you do then you're using it wrong. All clearly states the direction that Vercel is taking React. Soon enough it'll be Vercel-only software.
Happy to see a clear path for React going forward. React is under-appreciated in some circles of the fast-moving JavaScript world, where people are somehow expected to rewrite all their code from scratch every couple of years or so, after somebody starts shouting "framework X is dead", and everybody starts focusing on the new hotness. I'm not sure how that is economically viable, I know I couldn't afford that kind of approach.
I have a Clojure/ClojureScript app using React that I've been maintaining for the last 10 years. I don't use all the features of React, in fact I could probably use a much smaller library — the biggest advantage is that it provides a "re-render the UI based on app state change" model that fits Clojure very well. But I'm very happy that React is there and that it's been maintained with relatively little code rewriting necessary over the years.
It feels like React generally has an ongoing trajectory towards increasing complexity and features. For something that's effectively become the standard for frontend that's unfortunate. It would be great to have a simple reliable base, with extensions & addition complexity layered on top or included optionally. This announcement doesn't fill me with hope for that direction unfortunately, it mostly seems like Vercel getting more control, and they're driving a lot of that movement.
Being able to ignore parallel rendering, RSC, hooks, etc, and just write simple code for simple sites again would be fantastic.
Unfortunately all the major competition I've seen seems so significantly different that migrating any kind of non-trivial application would basically be a full rewrite. Is Preact or similar offering much promise here?
Small tangent: I noticed the HN in the share menu is the only one in color. They're unable to change it unless they host a copy of the icon themselves (they're hotlinking https://news.ycombinator.com/y18.svg). Surprised they don't have their own CDN/icon font at Facebook scale.
After seeing all the comments here I'm a bit relieved.
I don't care about the CEO's political stance, but Vercel's involvement with React has rubbed me the wrong way since the start of development of RSC. The development was basically behind half-closed doors, pretty much tied to Next.js (i.e. Vercel) and with zero specs except a high level description of what they were and their public API.
I don't care that they were WIP: the community should've been involved, not Vercel as a benevolent dictator guiding their design from start to almost finish. Such a huge paradigm shift shouldn't have been dictated by any particular entity... and IMO much less Next's team which I think are prone to overengineering and bad decisions.
IIRC there were points in time (maybe even currently?) where you had to use packages that were published to NPM but not even on any public repo.
I love the idea of RSC but that's where my love ends.
I like React a lot... but tbf, I never really quite agreed with the RSC push in general. I think most web-based apps are fine with client-render against an API/GraphQL/WebSocket backend. RSC is just a few steps too far in both Pure-Fucking-Magic (PFM) and rigidity in approach.
If there was a component library as complete as MUI for Yew/Dioxus/Leptos I'd have likely already switched to Rust/WASM.
The new foundation could be a turning point for React, but whether it truly decentralizes decision-making depends on how governance works in practice, not just on the list of corporate sponsors. Open source foundations have helped some projects thrive by formalizing community input, but they can also be slow to adapt if board dynamics favor stability over innovation. The real question is whether small developer voices and radical ideas will shape React's future, or if practical influence stays with the largest sponsors. Compared to one company's oversight, a well-run foundation can make React less vulnerable to a single vendor's agenda—but only if its structures actively foster broad participation and accountability. We'll see if React's evolution speeds up or settles into consensus-driven conservatism.
I'm disappointed that Vercel is a part of this foundation. NextJS is on its way to its funeral, they have absolutely ruined it with things nobody asked for or cares about. I have been working on a large scale NextJS app which when I run locally consumes just over 8GB OF RAM on M4 Mac Mini. Brilliant. Slowly migrating the application to a Vite Based React SPA with a dedicated Hono backend and life is already looking already better.
I should remind that in a similarly cheerful mood FB dumped support of Jest and a bunch of other libraries. They have a long history of killing successful projects.
Worse, Vercel is involved, and I literally don't remember anything good about that company.
I'd recommend to be very cautious with such news, and use older versions of React for the next couple of years.
It’s natural for Vercel to have a strong influence on the project. That’s what happens when a framework grows large and fragmented without a defined board, group, or leadership focused on both short- and long-term goals. At least now, with the foundation in place, there are additional voices to help guide the project rather than letting it move entirely in line with Vercel’s direction.
Governance by mega-corporations working in a cartel. Having read this recent article [https://lithub.com/how-american-tech-cartels-use-apps-to-bre...], I fail to see how this is a good thing. Gatekeepers with self-interests at the heart of the decision making process.
If you just want tools that work/make it easy to build apps and websites with JS (and you want direct access to the guy building them), you may find what I built after leaving React/Next interesting [1]. I built this because the creeping complexity and confusion of React's APIs combined with the stress of building a SaaS w/ Next.js became a giant ball of stress and time waste.
Feel free to jump in the Discord [2] with any questions.
I am always surprised to see the anti-Vercel stuff here. NextJS has repeatedly solved every thing I wanted React to do beyond its out-of-the-box fearures. You can pry NextJS from my cold, dead hands.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 1227 ms ] threadLike, I get that nothing is _owed_ here, but this feels like more of the same tragedy of the commons open source problem we see: tools that millions of apps depend on, barely propped up, and in this case, the child of a megacorporation that could easily create a proper evergreen endowment rather than a milquetoast token contribution to save face.
Or should we just be grateful?
NextJS is a pile of garbage, and their platform is absurdly expensive and leans heavily on vendor lock in.
I have a Clojure/ClojureScript app using React that I've been maintaining for the last 10 years. I don't use all the features of React, in fact I could probably use a much smaller library — the biggest advantage is that it provides a "re-render the UI based on app state change" model that fits Clojure very well. But I'm very happy that React is there and that it's been maintained with relatively little code rewriting necessary over the years.
Being able to ignore parallel rendering, RSC, hooks, etc, and just write simple code for simple sites again would be fantastic.
Unfortunately all the major competition I've seen seems so significantly different that migrating any kind of non-trivial application would basically be a full rewrite. Is Preact or similar offering much promise here?
I think the signals integrations are great added value to the "classic React" formula.
Light weight bundles too, can't recommend it enough.
I don't care about the CEO's political stance, but Vercel's involvement with React has rubbed me the wrong way since the start of development of RSC. The development was basically behind half-closed doors, pretty much tied to Next.js (i.e. Vercel) and with zero specs except a high level description of what they were and their public API.
I don't care that they were WIP: the community should've been involved, not Vercel as a benevolent dictator guiding their design from start to almost finish. Such a huge paradigm shift shouldn't have been dictated by any particular entity... and IMO much less Next's team which I think are prone to overengineering and bad decisions.
IIRC there were points in time (maybe even currently?) where you had to use packages that were published to NPM but not even on any public repo.
I love the idea of RSC but that's where my love ends.
I thought I was alone on this.
If there was a component library as complete as MUI for Yew/Dioxus/Leptos I'd have likely already switched to Rust/WASM.
React is obviously the "new jquery", and something else will come one day. So many specially boot-camp devs are "react only" devs.
Scary stuff.
Worse, Vercel is involved, and I literally don't remember anything good about that company.
I'd recommend to be very cautious with such news, and use older versions of React for the next couple of years.
I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would intentionally pick it in 2025 unless there were serious constraints that forced them to.
Feel free to jump in the Discord [2] with any questions.
[1] https://cheatcode.co/joystick
[2] http://discord.cheatcode.co
We can feel nostalgia but the world is moving.
It is hard to predict how everything will be in 5 years.