A heated Hacker News discussion asks whether anyone still enjoys React. Contributors argue the library has become a default hammer, forcing JavaScript‑heavy stacks onto projects that would run faster with plain HTML. They cite slower runtime, growing maintenance burden, and a flood of bugs as evidence that React’s promised productivity rarely materializes for large‑scale applications and enterprise teams today still.

On November 29, security researcher Lachlan Davidson disclosed a critical flaw in React Server Components, catalogued as CVE-2025-55182 with a perfect CVSS 10.0 score. The issue enables unauthenticated remote code execution, reigniting fears about the framework’s hydration model that ships identical JavaScript to client and server. Parallel complaints note that Next.js 15.1+ now behaves like a Vercel‑only platform, further eroding trust.

Several Silicon Valley CTOs report that seasoned React engineers are scarce and costly, prompting migrations toward native DOM APIs or static HTML approaches that load instantly on slow connections. Real‑world teams that abandoned the virtual DOM claim measurable speed gains and fewer regressions. The consensus on Hacker News: React’s dominance is waning, and developers now prioritize simplicity over library hype.