Aurora Scharff
2025 was a big year for React.
React 19 shipped in late 2024, and a lot of people were afraid React would be leaving the client behind. Create-React-App was finally sunset in February after community pressure when it broke in React 19. By May, Remix announced that Remix 3 was moving away from React. Meanwhile Dan Abramov returned to bless us with his React Server Components blog posts and RSC Explorer, explaining the purpose behind RSCs and how they actually worked.
Yet the question remained: where is React going?
React Conf in October answered that. The React Foundation was announced to give React a home beyond any single company. Compiler 1.0 went stable so we can stop littering our code with useMemo and useCallback. React 19.2 shipped with useEffectEvent and <Activity>; while <ViewTransition> in React Canary is making smooth animations accessible to the rest of us.
Ricky Hanlon's async demo brought together everything the team had been working on for years, and the Async React Working Group is helping libraries catch up with the patterns. Clearly, client-side React isn't going anywhere.
After all, SPAs still outnumber SSR apps in production, with TanStack Query remaining the default for async state management, and TanStack Start emerging as a promising client-first alternative to Next.js. As an example, T3 Chat recently migrated to leverage its SPA behaviors.
Opinions on server-side are more divided, with the growing list of directives ("use cache", "use workflow") sparking debate and great memes, while the December CVE reminded us RSCs are still maturing. On the server-first side, Next.js introduced Cache Components as an entirely new approach and RedwoodSDK went all-in on RSC.
React has also become the default output when you prompt for UI. Andrej Karpathy coined "vibe coding" in February, and tools like v0, Cursor, Lovable, and Bolt.new made it a reality, empowering anyone to build apps and bring their visions to life with shadcn/ui as the go-to.
It's a lot to keep up with, but Theo Browne pivoted to AI and somehow covers it all to his ever-growing audience, and thankfully This Week in React keeps landing in our inboxes.
So even though 2025 had its share of chaos, React is still in a great place. I'm excited to ship faster than ever, and as someone in developer education, curious how AI reshapes the way we learn. Can't wait to see what's next!