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 executes, no SEO without heroics, 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 behind auth where SEO is irrelevant, a lean Vite SPA is the right and simpler choice. The mistake is applying one answer to both, and it is the first thing we settle.

Data fetching is a solved problem — stop solving it again

An enormous amount of buggy React is hand-rolled data fetching: useEffect chains, loading flags, race conditions and stale caches reinvented in every component. We standardise on TanStack Query (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. Conflating server state and client state into one global blob is the single most common architectural error we untangle.

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 surface as a white screen in production. On performance, 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 sprinkling 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 primitives — Radix or React Aria — so keyboard and screen-reader support is structural rather than retrofitted. Testing with React Testing Library at the component level and Playwright for the flows that carry money. And a bundle budget enforced 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.