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Discussion on: React is Overkill: Why Python + HTMX is Dominating in 2026

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lucapu88 profile image
Luca Caputo

React is ALWAYS excessive! The article could have ended there. 🤣
Unfortunately, it's become a horrible trend, and the web has become filled with this library that constantly needs maintenance! You can do more stable and simple things with both Angular and Vue.js, but then people would have had to really study, whereas React can be learned in two days and is easy to use... no one cares if you then live only to maintain the thousands of libraries used to keep a project built with React running!

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syedahmershah profile image
Syed Ahmer Shah

The dependency hell is real. Moving back to more stable frameworks or even lighter setups feels like a breath of fresh air for long-term maintenance.

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tracygjg profile image
Tracy Gilmore

The additional factor is how much REACT code has been fed into coding LLMs and be used to generate more 'applications'. I shudder to think of what might get producted.

I applaud the author's use of HTMX. I have seen it used with Java and Go backends very successfully and think for 99% of CRUD applications (tables and forms) it is more than sufficient. There will be applications that need to support more user interactivity for which HTMX (Alpine-AJAX, etc.) are insufficient. In that can there might be justification for a JS framework but personally I would need convincing.

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syedahmershah profile image
Syed Ahmer Shah

That AI feedback loop is a scary thought—automating complexity rather than solving it.

I’m glad you mentioned Java and Go; it shows the hypermedia approach works everywhere. For 99% of CRUD, the "JS tax" just isn't worth it. I'd also need a lot of convincing to reach for a heavy framework now.

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tracygjg profile image
Tracy Gilmore

I have an example of an HTMX-based CRUD application that uses Node/Express backed by a SQLite database.

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syedahmershah profile image
Syed Ahmer Shah

That’s a classic, rock-solid stack. I’d love to see how you’re handling the partial updates—are you using a specific templating engine like EJS or Pug to ship those HTML fragments?

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tracygjg profile image
Tracy Gilmore

I initially used JS template literals but this makes the backend vulnerable to code injection. I called on handlebars (hbs) through the express-handlebars package for a more robust solution.

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