React 19's use Hook: 2 Weeks in Production (The Good, Bad, and Ugly)

Two weeks ago, I decided to migrate our Next.js 15 app to use React 19's new use hook for all data fetching.

Here's what actually happened (spoiler: it wasn't all smooth sailing).

What We'll Cover

• Why we migrated (and why you might want to wait)
• Real performance numbers from production
• 3 gotchas that will bite you
• Code examples from our actual codebase
• When to use use vs sticking with useEffect

The Setup

Our app: E-commerce dashboard with real-time analytics
Tech stack: Next.js 15, React 19, TypeScript
Team size: 5 developers (2 junior, 3 senior)
Traffic: ~50k daily users

The Migration Decision

We weren't chasing the latest shiny thing. Our data fetching code had real problems:

• 17 different loading state patterns across components
• Inconsistent error handling
• Race conditions in useEffect chains
• Junior devs struggling with async state management The use hook promised to solve all of this. But did it?

Continue reading for the full implementation guide...