Building Applications with Create React App vs Vite: Which One is Better?

Regarding building modern web applications with React, two tools frequently emerge in discussions: Create React App (CRA) and Vite. Both are designed to help you bootstrap a React project, but their philosophies and performance characteristics differ, which can greatly influence your development experience. So, which one should you choose for your next React project? Let’s explore the differences!

What is Create React App?

Create React App (CRA) is a command-line tool that sets up a fully configured React development environment with just one command. It has been around since 2016 and is developed and maintained by the React team at Facebook.

CRA simplifies much of the configuration process (such as Webpack, Babel, etc.), allowing developers to jump right in without the hassle of managing build tools.

Key Features of CRA:

• Zero configuration: It automatically configures everything from Webpack to Babel and ESLint with very little setup required.

• Rich ecosystem: A highly supported tool that comes with numerous plugins, tutorials, and a vibrant community.

• Ideal for beginners: An excellent choice for new developers to React or prefer to steer clear of complex build tool configurations.

However, as React projects grow, developers may find that Create React App can be slow, especially in development environments where build times can increase with the complexity of your app.

What is Vite?

Vite is another professional build tool, created by Evan You, the mind behind Vue.js, Vite is a build tool that utilizes native ES modules in modern browsers to provide an exceptionally quick development experience.

It pre-bundles dependencies with the build, a tool written in Go, making it significantly faster than traditional bundlers such as Webpack.

Key Features of Vite:

• Instant server start: Vite serves your code as native ES modules, allowing for nearly instant start times for development servers, unlike CRA.

• Hot Module Replacement (HMR): Vite's HMR is incredibly fast, enabling changes to be reflected in the browser almost immediately.

• Smaller, faster builds: Vite efficiently optimizes production builds, leading to smaller bundle sizes and quicker load times.

• Framework agnostic: While Vite works exceptionally well with React, it also supports Vue, Svelte, and various other modern frameworks.

Comparison between CRA vs. Vite

1) Development Speed

• CRA: Create React App streamlines the development process, but it relies on Webpack, which can slow down in larger applications. As the app grows, both startup and rebuild times can increase noticeably.

• Vite: Vite takes advantage of native ES modules, resulting in a much quicker development experience. Your development server launches almost immediately, and any code changes are shown in real time.

Winner: Vite

2) Production Build Times

• CRA: Build times in CRA are generally acceptable, but as the project expands, the builds may take longer because of Webpack’s bundling process.

• Vite: Vite typically offers faster production builds and smaller bundle sizes thanks to its superior optimization methods. It pre-bundles dependencies more effectively, resulting in a more efficient final product.

Winner: Vite

3) Learning Curve

• CRA: Getting started with Create React App is straightforward. You just need to run one command, and you’re all set to start building with React. While it has a more defined structure, this helps beginners steer clear of configuration issues.

• Vite: While it may not be as “plug-and-play” as CRA, Vite is still quite easy to set up, particularly for developers who are used to modern JavaScript tools. Beginners might need a bit more time to fully understand how Vite operates.

Winner: CRA (for beginners)

4) Community Support

• CRA: Developed by the React team, CRA boasts a large and active community. Thanks to the abundance of resources available, it's easy to find answers to common problems or troubleshoot issues.

• Vite: Vite has rapidly gained popularity, but its community is still in the process of growing. Although there are many tutorials and examples available, it hasn't yet achieved the same level of widespread adoption as CRA.

Winner: CRA

5) Path Alias Feature

Both Create-React-App and Vite allow for the use of path aliases, which can significantly enhance the readability of your project's code by enabling you to utilize custom import paths instead of complicated relative paths like ../../components/Header.

Create React App:

• CRA doesn't support path aliases out of the box. To add this feature, you'll have to eject your project and set up Webpack manually, which can be quite a hassle.

• Alternatively, you can utilize tools like craco or react-app-rewired to modify the Webpack configuration without ejecting. However, these are just workarounds and involve some additional steps.

Vite:

• Vite provides path aliasing out of the box. You can easily set up path aliases in Vite by adding a simple configuration in the vite.config.js file. For example:

Plain textANTLR4BashCC#CSSCoffeeScriptCMakeDartDjangoDockerEJSErlangGitGoGraphQLGroovyHTMLJavaJavaScriptJSONJSXKotlinLaTeXLessLuaMakefileMarkdownMATLABMarkupObjective-CPerlPHPPowerShell.propertiesProtocol BuffersPythonRRubySass (Sass)Sass (Scss)SchemeSQLShellSwiftSVGTSXTypeScriptWebAssemblyYAMLXMLimport { defineConfig } from 'vite'; import path from 'path'; export default defineConfig({ resolve: { alias: { '@components': path.resolve(__dirname, './src/components'), '@assets': path.resolve(__dirname, './src/assets'), }, }, });

This makes your imports clean and easy, improving development speed and code maintenance.

Winner: Vite

6) TypeScript Support

When it comes to TypeScript, both CRA and Vite offer support, but with some differences in ease of use and flexibility.

Create-React-App:

• However, CRA’s TypeScript setup is tightly integrated with its Webpack and Babel configurations. If you need to customize the TypeScript settings, you’ll likely need to eject your project.

• CRA has built-in TypeScript support, and you can start a new project using TypeScript by simply running npx create-react-app my-app --template typescript.

Vite:

• For additional TypeScript configuration, you don’t need to eject anything—you can customize your tsconfig.json file freely without affecting the rest of your setup.

• Vite also has excellent TypeScript support, and you can initialize a project with TypeScript by simply running npm init @vitejs/app my-app --template react-ts.

Vite’s TypeScript integration is more flexible compared to CRA. It uses esbuild to handle TypeScript during development, which is significantly faster than CRA’s Webpack-based setup.

Winner: Vite

7) Hot Module Replacement (HMR)

Hot Module Replacement (HMR) is a crucial tool for developers because it allows modules to be updated in the browser instantly when changes are made, eliminating the need for a full page reload. This greatly accelerates the development process by maintaining the application state while immediately showcasing code changes.

Create-React-App:

• CRA has basic HMR support, but its performance can degrade as the app grows larger. Depending on your project’s complexity, HMR might not be as fast, and you might experience slight delays when refreshing components in the browser.

Vite:

• Vite provides excellent control over HMR behavior, allowing you to choose which modules keep their state during updates and which ones require a full reload. This gives you greater flexibility in your development process.

• Vite stands out in HMR performance. It’s one of the key features of the tool, delivering incredibly fast HMR even for large and intricate applications. With Vite’s implementation of native ES modules and esbuild, changes in your code appear in the browser almost immediately, whether you're modifying styles, components, or state logic.

Ease of Customization

While CRA is great for straightforward projects, it can feel limiting if you require custom configurations. To gain more control over Webpack or Babel, you'll have to eject from CRA, which can introduce extra complexity.

Vite, in contrast, is very configurable while still being approachable. It provides flexibility right from the start, enabling you to adjust settings as necessary without having to “eject.”

Winner: Vite

Which One Should You Use?

If you're new to React or looking for a straightforward setup, Create React App remains a reliable option. Its extensive community support and user-friendly nature make it ideal for smaller projects or those just starting.

On the other hand, if you're developing a larger application and prioritize developer experience and performance, Vite is an excellent alternative. It's designed to be fast, adaptable, and optimized for contemporary development practices.

Vite is particularly beneficial in team settings where rapid build times and efficient hot-reloading are essential for maintaining productivity.

Wrapping up

Both Create React App and Vite have their advantages, but it's evident that Vite is increasingly favored by many developers because of its speed and contemporary architecture. As projects become more complex, Vite offers a significantly better experience compared to CRA.

However, CRA is still an excellent choice for developers who prefer to concentrate on creating React applications without getting bogged down by the intricacies of the build system.

Learn more about 20 handpicked daily useful dev tools.

In summary:

1. Choose Vite for larger, performance-critical applications where speed and flexibility are key.

2. Choose CRA for simple, small projects or if you’re a beginner looking for minimal configuration.

FAQs

1. Can I switch from Create-React-App to Vite?Yes, you can migrate your project from CRA to Vite, though it will require some manual configuration. Vite’s documentation guides such migrations.

2. Is Vite only for React?No, Vite supports multiple frameworks, including Vue, Svelte, and Preact. It’s designed to be framework-agnostic.

3. Which one is better for SEO?Both tools can be optimized for SEO, but Vite's smaller bundles and faster performance give it a slight edge for better page load speeds, which can improve SEO.

This Blog Originally Posted at Programmingly.dev

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