React Development

React is the library the rest of the frontend world orbits, and most of what people call "React development" is really a set of decisions around React: which framework wraps it, how state is managed, how data is fetched, and whether the app should render on the server at all. Get those four right and React is a joy to maintain for years. Get them wrong and you have the sprawling, re-rendering, prop-drilled application that gives React its bad reputation.

Not every React app should be a single-page app

The reflex to reach for a client-rendered SPA is the source of most of the React pain we are asked to fix: a blank page until a large bundle downloads and runs, poor SEO unless you work very hard, and a slow first paint on the mid-range Android your users actually hold. If the app is public and needs to rank, we build it in Next.js with server rendering so crawlers and users get real HTML. If it is a logged-in dashboard where SEO does not matter, a light Vite SPA is the right and simpler choice. The mistake is using one answer for both. It is the first thing we settle.

Data fetching is a solved problem — stop solving it again

A lot of buggy React comes from data fetching written by hand: useEffect chains, loading flags, timing bugs and old cached data, repeated in every component. We use TanStack Query as our standard (or the framework's own data layer) for server state — caching, deduplication, background refetching and invalidation handled once, correctly. That leaves genuine client state — the cart drawer, the wizard step, the theme — for a small, deliberate store like Zustand, or Redux Toolkit when the app is large and the team wants strict conventions. Mixing server data and screen data into one big global store is the most common design mistake we have to fix.

TypeScript, and re-renders you can actually see

We write React in TypeScript, always, because a typed component contract catches the prop and shape errors that otherwise show up as a white screen on the live site. On speed, we do not guess: we profile with the React DevTools profiler, find the components re-rendering for no reason, and fix the actual cause — an unstable callback, a context that is too broad, a list without stable keys — rather than adding memo everywhere and hoping. Most "React is slow" complaints are a handful of fixable re-render problems, not the framework.

The tooling that keeps it maintainable

Vite for the dev server and build, because fast feedback is not a luxury. A component library built on accessible parts — Radix or React Aria — so keyboard and screen-reader support is built in and not added later. Testing with React Testing Library at the component level and Playwright for the flows that carry money. And a bundle size limit checked in CI, because a React app's size only ever grows unless someone is watching it, and the person watching should be the build, not a customer on a slow connection.