Yes, Create React App (CRA) is officially dead.
React, developed by Facebook (now Meta), remains one of the most popular libraries for building dynamic user interfaces. For years, CRA was the go-to tool for bootstrapping React projects, with over 200K downloads per week.
Why Should We Move On from CRA?
CRA's performance issues — especially slow build times and outdated tooling — have made it impractical for modern development, particularly in large projects. As better alternatives emerged, its drawbacks became more apparent:
- Slow development updates – Hot reloading and file changes take longer to reflect.
- Sluggish local server startup – Starting the dev server is noticeably slower compared to modern tools.
- Inefficient builds – Longer build times increase CI/CD costs and slow down deployment.
- Poor runtime performance – Larger bundles and outdated optimizations lead to a slower user experience.
If you're looking for a replacement, here are two of the best options:
1. Vite
Vite is a high-performance frontend build tool that dramatically improves speed over CRA. It provides instant Hot Module Replacement (HMR), modern ES module support, and near-zero startup time. However, it’s purely a frontend tool and does not include server-side rendering or API handling.
2. Next.js
Next.js is the preferred choice for full-stack React applications. It offers server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), API routes, and middleware, making it ideal for performance-focused and scalable applications.
As the React ecosystem evolves, modern tools like Vite and Next.js provide a far superior developer experience compared to CRA. If you're still using CRA, now is the time to migrate.