Remix vs SvelteKit vs Next.js: Which One Breaks Less

SvelteKit Made Me Believe in Web Development Again (Then Reality Hit)

SvelteKit bundles are like 25kb for a whole app. The first time I saw that I thought the build was broken. It wasn't. The catch? Try finding a decent auth library. There's like three options and they're all maintained by one guy named Dave who hasn't committed in 6 months.

The performance is actually insane though. My app loads instantly on shit phones while my old React app was still parsing JavaScript. Memory usage is stupid low - like 15MB for a whole dashboard. But then I needed to connect to Salesforce and had to build my own API wrapper because the React ones don't work with Svelte.

Version Hell I'm Still Living With:
SvelteKit 2.0 broke my imports overnight in January 2024. $app/stores didn't move but how you import route parameters changed - params became a reactive store instead of a plain object. The migration guide says "just update your imports" but doesn't mention the 47 TypeScript errors when $page.params.id becomes $page.params.get('id'). I'm still using 1.30.x on one project because upgrading breaks the Vercel adapter with cryptic ENOENT: no such file or directory errors.

Also the adapter system is confusing as fuck. adapter-node, adapter-vercel, adapter-static - pick the wrong one and your app just... doesn't work. No helpful error, just silence. Took me two days to figure out adapter-static doesn't do SSR because apparently that's obvious to everyone except me.

Remix: Finally, Forms That Don't Suck (Until the Corporate Takeover)

Remix was perfect. HTML forms just worked. Data loading happened server-side like it should. No client-side state management hell. Then React Router absorbed it in May 2024 and broke every single one of my deployment pipelines overnight.

The whole @remix-run/node thing just disappeared one day. My CI/CD scripts started failing with "Module not found: Can't resolve '@remix-run/node'" errors and I thought I was going insane. Turns out the entire project got merged into React Router v7 with about 3 months warning that nobody read. Spent two weeks changing every @remix-run/* import to the unified react-router package.

But when it works? Holy shit, forms are beautiful. You write HTML:

<form method="post">
  <input name="email" />
  <button>Subscribe</button>
</form>

And it just works. Server handles the POST, validates the data, returns errors. No useState, no useEffect, no loading states. None of that client-side circus that makes you want to quit programming.

The Pain Points That Remain Unfixed:
My Docker containers randomly serve dev bundles in production if I forget NODE_ENV=production. The error message is just "app not working" which is super helpful. Session cookies fail silently - your auth just stops working and Remix doesn't tell you why.

CloudFlare breaks streaming responses for no reason I can figure out. Docs say "configure caching correctly" but don't explain what that means. Still haven't solved this one.

Next.js: Feature Overload Nightmare

Next.js has every feature and that's the problem. App Router, Pages Router, Server Components, Client Components, ISR, SSG, SSR - just fucking pick one and stick with it. The decision paralysis is real.

Bundle analyzer shows my "simple" dashboard hitting 180kb in production and 60% of that is Next.js runtime. I can't optimize away the framework overhead without breaking functionality. Turbopack made dev builds 5x faster in Next.js 15 but production bundles are still bloated because the runtime doesn't tree-shake properly.

Server Components break hot reload in creative ways. That ReferenceError: Cannot access 'MyComponent' before initialization error shows up in completely unrelated files when you import a Client Component inside a Server Component. The stack trace points to Next.js internals instead of your actual mistake. I've learned to just restart the dev server when things get weird, which is daily.

Shit That Still Doesn't Work Right:
generateStaticParams() fails silently if your TypeScript types are slightly off. The error message is useless and you waste hours debugging build outputs instead of obvious type errors.

Server Components crash if you accidentally use useState but the error shows up 3 components away from where you actually fucked up. The stack traces point to Next.js internals, not your code.

Image optimization randomly stops working when you need custom loaders. Works fine in development, breaks in production for reasons I still don't understand. The documentation for custom image loaders is either outdated or written by someone who never actually used the feature.

Vercel deployment is one click but costs $400/month for anything real. Self-hosting Next.js is possible but you'll spend weeks setting up PM2, reverse proxies, and memory management because Next.js assumes you're using Vercel.

What I Actually Use (And Why I Hate Myself For It)

SvelteKit when I need shit to actually load fast. Bundle sizes that don't make you weep, but you'll spend three weeks building a dropdown that works on mobile. Currently fighting with a custom auth flow because all the Svelte auth libraries got abandoned after their maintainers got real jobs.

Remix when forms matter more than my sanity. HTML that works like fucking HTML is apparently revolutionary in 2025. It's the boring choice that doesn't actively try to murder your deployment pipeline every Tuesday.

Next.js when the client specifically asks for it or when HR can't find Svelte developers in this century. Everyone tolerates React, Stack Overflow has 50 answers for every stupid question, but the bundle analyzer results will make you question your career choices.

And don't get me started on npm audit fix - it'll randomly break your build by upgrading some transitive dependency that half your project depends on. Docker Desktop decides to stop working every time there's a system update, which is perfect timing for when you need to demo something.

The Shit That Breaks at 3AM

My SvelteKit app crashed trying to serve a 40MB CSV export. No error message, just silent death. Still don't know why adapter-node chokes on large responses.

Remix randomly gets stuck in infinite loading loops when nested routes share data dependencies. Haven't figured out the pattern yet but restarting the server fixes it.

Next.js hydration mismatches took down production for 3 hours last month. The source maps were completely useless - error traces pointed to minified Next.js internals instead of my actual components. Still don't know what caused it, just reverted and moved on.

Memory usage under load is all over the place. SvelteKit stays light, Remix is reasonable, Next.js just eats RAM until the server dies. These numbers change depending on moon phases and what Node version you're running.

Oh and Jenkins can eat shit and die. Why does CI randomly fail on the exact same code that worked yesterday? Because Jenkins decided to use a different npm cache or something equally stupid. TeamCity isn't better - it just fails in more expensive ways.

Speaking of expensive failures, why does AWS CloudWatch cost more than my rent? I just want to see error logs, not fund Jeff Bezos's rocket hobby. And CloudFlare's "5 second rule" for DDoS protection means your users think your site is broken when it's actually just CloudFlare being dramatic about traffic spikes.

Docker containers work perfectly on my MacBook but explode in production because apparently ARM and x86 are different architectures. Who fucking knew? Spent two days debugging a memory leak that only happened on Linux containers because some Node.js native module compiled differently.

I still don't know why the first deployment attempt always fails but attempt #4 works with identical configuration. Infrastructure is black magic and I'm tired of pretending it makes sense.

SvelteKit: When Bundle Size Anxiety Takes Over Your Life

I migrated a React dashboard to SvelteKit because the bundle was 200kb and climbing. Lighthouse score went from 60 to 95, bundle dropped to like 25kb, users stopped complaining about slow loading. Should have been a win, right? Wrong.

The ecosystem pain is real and unending. Need a date picker? Build it yourself. Need a rich text editor? Good fucking luck. Auth library that doesn't break every update? Keep dreaming.

How the Migration Actually Went:
Week 1: "This is easy, just rewrite components in Svelte syntax"
Week 2: "Where the fuck is a decent date picker?"
Week 3: "Okay, I'm building a date picker from scratch now"
Week 4: "Why is every auth library broken or abandoned?"
Week 5: "Writing custom auth flow because nothing else works"
Week 6: Boss asks why the 'simple migration' is taking forever

Shit I Had to Rebuild from Scratch:

• Date picker (React-DatePicker doesn't exist in Svelte land)
• Modal components (existing ones are basic as hell)
• Data fetching with caching (no TanStack Query equivalent)
• Form validation (SvelteKit forms are nice but limited)
• Animation system (Framer Motion spoiled me)

What Actually Got Better:
Bundle size dropped like crazy and performance is stupid good. Hot reload actually works instead of breaking state randomly. TypeScript integration is clean without fighting the compiler. No more hydration mismatches that make no sense.

Was It Worth It?
PageSpeed score went from 65 to 95. Mobile users stopped bouncing immediately. Performance budget anxiety disappeared. But I spent months building shit that already existed in React-land.

Learning Curve Hell:
Took weeks to stop reaching for useEffect and useState. Svelte reactivity is different and sometimes magical in ways that confused me. The docs are actually good though, unlike the React documentation labyrinth.

Who Else is Crazy Enough to Use This:
NYT graphics team, some parts of Spotify's new player, 1Password web app. Companies that care more about performance than hiring easily.

Remix: The Framework That Actually Made Sense (RIP)

Remix was the first React framework that didn't make me want to quit web development. No client state management hell, no loading spinners, no race conditions. Just HTML forms that work and data that loads server-side like the web was supposed to work.

The mental model shift took a minute - stop thinking React components, start thinking web pages. Each route has a loader for data and an action for forms. Revolutionary concepts like "HTML forms work without JavaScript."

The Magic of Forms That Don't Suck:

// This is it. No useState, no onSubmit handlers, no bullshit
export async function action({ request }) {
  const form = await request.formData()
  const email = form.get("email")
  
  if (!email) return json({ error: "Email required" })
  
  await subscribeUser(email)
  return json({ success: true })
}

That's a working contact form. HTML form posts to server, server validates and responds. No client-side state management circus, no form libraries, no validation libraries. Just web standards that work.

The Great Merger Disaster of 2024:
One day I wake up and all my @remix-run/* imports are deprecated. React Router absorbed the whole project overnight without much warning. Deployment scripts broke, package.json became a mess, spent two weeks fixing imports and dependency hell.

The functionality is the same but the migration path was a clusterfuck. Now it's React Router v7 with a new name and broken muscle memory.

Next.js Migration Reality:
File-based routing maps over easily. React components mostly work as-is. But data fetching needs a complete rewrite - goodbye useEffect hell, hello server loaders.

Forms become stupid simple instead of requiring 3 state management libraries. Bundle size drops because you're not shipping React Query and form validation to every user.

Production Pain That Still Exists:
Forget NODE_ENV=production in Docker and you'll serve dev bundles in production. No helpful error, just broken performance that makes you look like an idiot in front of customers.

Session cookies fail silently if you fuck up the secret key - just silent auth failures that make users think your app is broken. CloudFlare streaming still breaks for mysterious reasons I've given up trying to understand.

And can we talk about environment variables for a second? Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes, CI/CD - every single deployment method has a different way of handling env vars and they all fail silently in their own special way. You spend 3 hours debugging why your app won't connect to the database only to find out Railway expects DATABASE_URL but you set DB_URL because that's what the other 6 services expected.

This reminds me of the time our staging environment started serving production data because someone copied the wrong environment file. Nobody noticed for two weeks until a customer called asking why they could see other people's orders. Fun times explaining that to legal.

Who Actually Uses This Shit: Shopify admin (they bought it so they better use it), Kent C. Dodds' personal site (he was on the team), various e-commerce sites that need forms to actually work instead of breaking randomly.

Next.js: The Framework That Has Everything (Including the Kitchen Sink)

Next.js is what happens when you try to solve every web development problem at once. SSG, SSR, ISR, App Router, Pages Router, Server Components, Client Components, Edge Runtime, Middleware - just pick one strategy and stick with it for 5 minutes.

Every feature decision leads to 12 more decisions. Want server-side rendering? Choose between 6 different rendering strategies. Need routing? Pick App Router or Pages Router or the hybrid approach nobody recommends but half the tutorials use.

App Router Migration: A Choose Your Own Adventure in Suffering
Week 1: "App Router looks great, this migration will be easy!"
Week 2: "Why are all my API routes broken? Oh, they moved to app/api/route.ts"
Week 3: "What the fuck is a Server Component and why can't I use onClick?"
Week 4: "These hydration mismatches make zero sense and point to minified code"
Week 5: "Boss wants the demo tomorrow and nothing works"
Week 6: "Reverting to Pages Router and pretending this never happened"

getServerSideProps becomes Server Components but the mental model is completely different. API routes move to app/api/route.ts instead of pages/api/ because consistency is overrated. Middleware only runs on Edge Runtime so half your Node.js packages break.

Bundle Size: The Elephant in the Room
Bundle analyzer on my "simple" dashboard shows 140kb and growing. 60% of that is Next.js doing Next.js things that I can't control or optimize. A contact form shouldn't be 140kb but here we are.

Production Gotchas That Ruined My Week:
generateStaticParams() fails silently when your return types are slightly wrong. No helpful error, just broken builds that take 20 minutes to fail.

Server Components crash if you accidentally import something with browser APIs. Error shows up 3 files away from where you actually fucked up. Stack traces point to Next.js internals instead of your code.

Image optimization works perfectly in development, breaks mysteriously in production with custom loaders. Next.js 14.2 changed something but the docs weren't updated.

Middleware runs on Edge Runtime so any Node.js package you import just dies. No warning, no helpful error, just broken middleware.

The Vercel Tax
Next.js works great on Vercel because Vercel made Next.js. Anywhere else requires complex configurations and you lose half the optimization benefits. Self-hosting means setting up PM2, reverse proxies, and memory management that Vercel handles automatically.

Vercel costs add up fast - $20/month per developer plus bandwidth costs that scale with success. $400/month bills for a medium-sized app are normal.

Who Uses This Monster: Netflix, TikTok, Airbnb, and basically every company that needs to hire React developers quickly. The ecosystem support means someone on Stack Overflow already solved your exact problem.

Look, Here's What I Actually Use (And Why You Should Care)

After getting woken up by production failures from all three of these frameworks, here's my real-world advice:

I reach for SvelteKit when I'm building something where performance actually matters and I can afford to spend time building custom components. The bundle sizes make me feel less guilty about shipping JavaScript to people on shitty phones. But I budget extra time because I'll be writing a dropdown from scratch.

Remix gets picked when forms are critical and I'm tired of wrestling with client-side validation libraries that break in Safari. The mental model just makes sense - HTML forms work like HTML forms should work. It's boring in the best possible way.

Next.js happens when someone else makes the decision or when I need to hire React developers quickly. The ecosystem support means Stack Overflow has already solved whatever stupid problem I'm dealing with at 2AM.

Honestly, they all work. SvelteKit makes you build more custom shit but runs fast. Remix makes forms not suck but limits your options. Next.js has everything but also HAS EVERYTHING.

Pick based on what kind of pain you can tolerate.

Migration Time Estimates (Multiply by 2-3x for Reality)

The Real Talk: If your current setup works, don't migrate unless performance is actually killing your business. All three can build the same shit - the differences matter way less than just shipping code that works.

The questions that actually matter: Which one won't get you fired when it breaks at 3AM? How bad is the learning curve for your team? What happens when you need to hire someone new?