Framework · 2016–now · Platform Wars
Next.js
React with routing, SSR, and deployment opinions — App Router gravity and vendor lock-in as the default web stack.
Why Next.js stuck
Next.js stuck by folding SSR, routing, and image optimization into one vendor-friendly stack. Vercel marketing helped; developer ergonomics sealed it. App Router complexity was the 2024–2025 tax; caching and navigation churn is the next one. As of 7 October 2026, Cache Components is the recommended model, on by default in create-next-app, and slated to become the default in v17 — instant navigation sits inside that model. Still beats rolling your own webpack nightmare for most product teams; TanStack Start is the escape hatch for people who want Vite without the Vercel gravity well.
Patterns
Sources
Compare with
Related
Framework · 2013–now
React
Components and unidirectional data. Won the front-end by being good enough and having a gravitational ecosystem.
Architecture · 2016–2024
Jamstack
Pre-render + CDN + APIs. The brand cooled; the pattern (static where possible) stuck.
Language · 2012–now
TypeScript
JS with a typechecker that conquered the ecosystem — then a native Go compiler that made `tsc` an order of magnitude faster. The rare fad that became the floor.
Framework · 2024–now
TanStack Start
Full-stack React on TanStack Router, Vite, and server functions — the typed alternative to Next's App Router gravity.
Framework · 2020–2025
Remix
Web standards–first React framework with nested routes and forms. Merged into React Router; the ideas survived the brand.
Framework · 2021–now
Astro
Islands of JavaScript on a page of HTML. The content-site framework that outlived the Jamstack keynote — then the team joined Cloudflare.