[mati365]

I implemented CKEditor integrations for Rails, Livewire, Phoenix, and React. I think the best developer experience was with Phoenix - at every step I was surprised by how well thought-out the framework is and how easy it is to build integrations for it. I definitely can’t say the same about Rails or, especially, React with the awful Next.js. For anyone curious: https://github.com/Mati365/ckeditor5-phoenix

As for Livewire - it feels like a simplified copy of Phoenix. In my opinion, it’s less advanced and less intuitive. For example, Livewire components don’t support slots, while Phoenix components handle them without any issues. Slots are critical for clean component composition - without them, you end up with messy, repetitive templates and a lot of unnecessary logic in the components themselves.

When it comes to Next.js, constant router changes and questionable decisions have become a daily routine. There’s no point integrating with something that gets rewritten every week and can’t be trusted to stay stable.

[dominicrose]

PHP (Laravel) + JQuery still works for me in 2025, but I would never use Livewire.

Using Node.js would hurt productivity but it's more powerful if needed. It may be needed because it has async/await and it has socket.io. It's also possible to use Typescript.

Next.js can be useful if you need everything (good SEO + highly interactive) but let's be honest how many websites need good SEO and websockets? LinkedIn maybe.

[mati365]

I'm not so sure Next.js is as SEO-friendly as people claim. The JavaScript bundles are pretty heavy, and the page still needs to hydrate before it becomes fully interactive. There are attempts to speed this up with React Server Components, but the developer experience there is already worse than with Phoenix components.

Next.js server performance isn’t great either - honestly, it’s pretty bad. Pages don’t feel that fast for users despite all the tricks and optimizations. In my opinion, metrics like LCP and others are much easier to optimize in older, more traditional frameworks. Unless you’re building a full-blown web application, a classic web page will almost always be faster and simpler to deliver without all the Next.js complexity.

[Tade0]

I'm curious about your experience with Rails. What specifically caused issues?

[mati365]

The main issues were related to how JavaScript is integrated and distributed within Rails. In older versions, you have to deal with Sprockets and dependency bundling, which is tricky if you want your integration to work across a wide range of Rails versions.

In newer versions, import maps are recommended instead. The problem is that import maps enforce ESM, while Sprockets (as far as I know) doesn’t support ESM at all. On top of that, there are compatibility issues with Turbo links, various form libraries, and the limited extensibility of the import map library itself - adding extra dependencies is just painful.

Installing CKEditor wasn’t straightforward either, so I ended up creating a small DSL to simplify it. But then came another challenge: providing support for custom plugins in a way that would work with every Rails version, even without a bundler.

All of this is made even harder by the fact that CKEditor is distributed in both cloud and NPM versions, which complicates integration paths further.

In contrast, Phoenix makes things much simpler. From what I remember, the standard setup uses esbuild, which automatically pulls NPM dependencies from the deps directory - the same place where Elixir libraries are installed. This means you can distribute a package that includes both the Elixir and NPM parts of the editor, without having to manually modify package.json or worry about dependency conflicts.

[jarek83]

I wonder what made it hard for you in Rails.

[sodapopcan]

As a fan of both, the LiveView DX is simpler than Hotwire's (though of course there are trade-offs both ways). With Hotwire you have the think about frames whereas LiveView is more like React where you just change the state and the appropriate diff is patched in without having to think about much else. This is not to say that Hotwire's frames are complex, LiveView is just that much simpler in that regard.

[omnimus]

I am not sure you can say Livewire is a copy. The name suggests that is the case but both projects were started at similar time Livewire is afaik even older project than Liveview (Hotwire is youngest - in a way). They both take different approaches because PHP/Elixir have very different characteristics.

I think Livewire is still pretty great. Since PHP can't do websockets easily they focus on http and in most cases thats just fine. Liveview websockets can be an overkill.

[rustystump]

It makes me sad that today you cannot say react without nextjs in the same sentence.

React used to be the leader in how to make ui reasonable in the generic client sense. Having done java swing, android, swift ui, and custom game dev ui work with all the forms of state management, react was on to something… until the ssr fad attacked. Now it is all but nextjs in disguise.

[axelthegerman]

If the industry wouldn't have pushed React as the magic bullet that is always to be used it could have stayed an awesome interactive frontend library.

In some cases it's just not what you need and SSR etc are more important - then just use appropriate tools instead of forcing React to do that too

[port11]

There really isn't any need to conflate React with Next. React has its issues — notably more after exposing its internals in hooks —, but Next should be seen as something on its own.

I don't mind picking up a contract for maintaining React code, but never again am I touching anything built by Vercel; unless I specifically crave the “automagically different every release” quicksand masochism of their tools. I'm sorry to the people working on, say, Next; these are qualified and talented individuals. But the DX over time, gods…

React is still a reasonable view library, although not a top choice at all (for me). Insisting on using it for SSR via Next is self-inflicted pain down the road.

[lowercased]

> For example, Livewire components don’t support slots

IIRC, Livewire 4 will support slots, but... that's still a few weeks away from release. There seem to be a number of perf and qol improvements in LW4.

[ramon156]

I want to give both of these a try, especially if you say react+next.js is awful. You'd think TS-TS would be well thought out

[tracker1]

If you want to mix server with React and TS, then take a look at Astro or HTMX.

[Exoristos]

Don't preemptively give up on React with Next.js because some posters turn their frustration with it into contempt. Many of us use React 19 and Next App Router to great effect, and enjoy it, although there was certainly a learning curve.