I read "The Frontend Treadmill" (https://polotek.net/posts/the-frontend-treadmill/) and it makes me think a lot.<p>I used to be a backend developer, and most of my experience is there. For frontend, last time I used jQuery and it was OK for me. Simple and worked fine. Now I want to build new side project and I think maybe vanilla JS is best? JavaScript has many good features now and browsers can do many things.<p>1. Can vanilla JS work for medium-sized apps in 2025?
2. What small libraries would you add if needed?<p>I don't want to rewrite everything in 2-3 years when frameworks change again. This seems like a waste of time. Has anyone here stopped using big frameworks and feels better about it?
It always depends on what kind of project you're going to work on. My projects usually falls on the CRUD side.<p>For that, I keep using Django + Unpoly (check it out) + Bootstrap and I always get a SPA like app that works very fine.<p>And I keep my stack very lean. I'm also a backend developer so frontend stuff is just an annoyance. New language, new build pipelines, multiple deploys (frontend/backend) etc.<p>HMTX is also something you should take a look.
That article is a bit misleading.<p>Your frontend framework will not magically get "outdated" after a few years. React has been going strong for since a decade now. Moreover, even "dead" frameworks such as Ember are actively maintained.<p>I would suggest using Next.js on the frontend for a medium-sized app.