Create React App is Dead

Create React App was Facebook's answer to webpack configuration hell. Before CRA existed in 2016, setting up React meant spending half your day fighting webpack configs, Babel transforms, and ESLint rules just to see "Hello World" on screen. You'd copy-paste some sketchy boilerplate from GitHub, cross your fingers, and inevitably break something trying to add a new dependency. The React community was fragmented across dozens of different starter templates, each with their own quirks and outdated dependencies.

CRA solved this by hiding webpack behind a black box. One command, boom - working React app. No config hell, no dependency archaeology, no spending half your day figuring out why CSS loaders hate you.

The Good Years (2016-2022)

CRA was legitimately revolutionary. You could go from zero to React app in under 5 minutes:

npx create-react-app my-app
cd my-app  
npm start

And it would actually work. The dev server started (eventually), hot reload worked (mostly), and you could deploy to production without configuring a single webpack loader.

Millions of developers learned React this way. Every bootcamp, tutorial, and React course started with CRA. It became the standard because it solved real problems:

• No webpack trauma: Webpack's documentation was nightmare fuel for beginners. Stack Overflow was flooded with webpack configuration questions.
• Batteries included: Jest testing, ESLint rules, production builds all worked out of the box. Hot reloading and development server configured perfectly.
• Updates were easy: Bump react-scripts version, get new tools and optimizations. The React team could ship improvements to millions of apps at once.
• Team consistency: Everyone used the same build setup, no more "works on my machine". Corporate environments loved the standardization.

The Ejection Trap

CRA's biggest feature was also its biggest trap: ejecting. Need to customize webpack? Run npm run eject and suddenly you own 200+ dependencies and configuration files that look like they were written by someone having a mental breakdown.

Ejecting was supposed to be an escape hatch, but it was more like opening Pandora's box. Once you ejected, you owned everything - every webpack loader, every Babel transform, every ESLint rule. No more easy updates, no more "it just works." You'd gone from zero configuration to being the webmaster of a house of cards.

When the Wheels Started Coming Off

By 2022, the cracks were getting impossible to ignore:

Build Times from Hell

CRA's dev server took 15-30 seconds to start. That doesn't sound like much until you're restarting it 50 times a day. You'd run npm start, grab coffee, question your life choices, and eventually see your app.

Hot reload was "hot" like a lukewarm shower. Save a file, wait 2-5 seconds, maybe see your changes. Meanwhile, tools like Vite were updating components before you could lift your finger off Ctrl+S. Developer experience benchmarks showed Vite was orders of magnitude faster at hot reloading.

The Framework Mismatch

React was evolving toward server components and full-stack frameworks. CRA was stuck in the "single-page app" mindset from 2016. Features like Next.js App Router and React Server Components couldn't work with CRA's architecture.

Maintenance Hell

The CRA team was basically one person (Joe Haddad) trying to maintain a tool used by millions. Issues piled up, PRs sat unmerged, and React 19 compatibility was always "coming soon."

The Final Nail: Vite Showed Up

Then Vite showed up and made CRA look like shit. Sub-second dev server startup. Instant hot reload. Modern build pipeline. Everything CRA did, but actually fast.

Developers tried Vite and couldn't go back to waiting 30 seconds for CRA to start. It was like switching from dial-up to broadband. The performance difference wasn't subtle – it was life-changing.

The Official Death Certificate

In February 2025, the React team finally put CRA out of its misery:

"We're deprecating Create React App for new apps, and encouraging existing apps to migrate to a framework, or to migrate to a build tool like Vite, Parcel, or RSBuild."

The reasons were brutal but honest:

• No active maintainers (it was essentially abandoned)
• Can't support React 19 properly
• Build performance that makes developers want to quit programming
• Modern React development needs full-stack frameworks, not 2016-era SPAs

Don't panic though - it's not completely "dead." CRA still gets critical security patches in maintenance mode. But no new features, no React 19 support, and definitely no build performance improvements that could save your sanity.

If You're Still Using CRA

You're not fucked, but you're definitely behind. Existing CRA apps still work and get critical security patches. But you won't get:

• React 19 features like improved concurrent rendering
• Modern build optimizations that could cut your bundle size in half
• Dev server performance that doesn't make you want to throw your laptop
• New React features that require modern build tools

Time to plan your escape. Next.js, Vite, and React Router are all waiting with migration guides and significantly better developer experiences. Just make sure you're not running Node 16.x when you migrate - learned that the hard way when Vite refused to start with cryptic ESM errors.

The Numbers Don't Lie

CRA was downloaded millions of fucking times per month at its peak. That's not a typo - millions of fucking developers every month. Every React tutorial, bootcamp, and YouTube video started with npx create-react-app. It was the de facto way to start any React project from 2017 to 2022.

But downloads don't tell the whole story. Behind those numbers were millions of developers slowly getting more frustrated with CRA's limitations. Every time someone Googled "create react app slow" or "create react app custom webpack config", CRA was losing another convert. Developer forums and GitHub issues were flooded with performance complaints.

The Ejection Nightmare

Remember the first time you needed to customize webpack in a CRA project? You'd find some Stack Overflow answer telling you to npm run eject, and you'd think "this can't be that bad."

Then you'd run it and suddenly own dozens of configuration files, hundreds of dependencies, and a webpack config that looked like it was written by someone having an existential crisis.

Spent 4 hours one night debugging why staging was completely fucked after someone ejected without telling anyone. Turns out our Docker container was hunting for build files that weren't there anymore because ejection changes everything. The worst part? The person who ejected had already left for vacation, so I'm debugging their mess at midnight trying to figure out why production deploys were failing.

npm run eject
## Are you sure? This action is permanent.
## y
## *explosion of configuration files*
## *immediate regret*

Ejection was supposed to be an escape hatch, but it was fucking terrible. You'd gone from "it just works" to "I need a PhD in webpack configuration to add a fucking CSS loader."

The worst part? Once you ejected, you were on your own. No more simple npm update to get new features. You owned every single piece of the build pipeline, including dependencies you'd never heard of and plugins that might break with the next Node.js update. The CRA documentation literally warned you: "this is a one-way operation. Once you eject, you can't go back!"

The Build Time Hell Everyone Ignored

Here's what nobody talks about: CRA build times were destroying developer productivity.

Waiting 30 seconds for your dev server to start was just... accepted. You'd run npm start, alt-tab to Slack to complain about build times, grab coffee, contemplate why you didn't become a plumber, and eventually your app would load. Thirty fucking seconds to see a Hello World component change.

Meanwhile, your Rust colleagues were rebuilding their entire project in 3 seconds. Your Python friends were getting instant feedback with Flask's auto-reload. But React developers? We just accepted that development servers took forever because "webpack is doing complex optimizations."

The Vite Wake-Up Call

Then Evan You released Vite and everything changed. Sub-second startup. Instant hot reload. Modern build pipeline that actually used ES modules instead of treating them like legacy features.

Developers tried Vite and couldn't go back. It wasn't just faster - it was life-changingly faster. The difference between CRA and Vite was fucking huge - sub-second builds vs 30-second waits.

The Framework Evolution CRA Missed

React was evolving toward full-stack frameworks. Server Components, Suspense for data fetching, modern routing patterns. CRA was stuck in 2016, still thinking React was just a view library for single-page apps.

Next.js was adding App Router, server actions, and streaming. CRA was... still trying to make webpack compile faster.

The React team was building React 19 around modern frameworks. CRA couldn't support React Server Components because its entire architecture was client-only. It became a relic of the "SPA everything" era.

The Maintenance Crisis Nobody Saw Coming

Here's the dirty secret nobody wanted to admit: CRA was basically one dude (Joe Haddad) trying to maintain a tool that millions of developers depended on. One person dealing with hundreds of GitHub issues, compatibility nightmares, and webpack updates while the rest of us complained about slow builds.

Issues piled up. PRs sat unmerged for months. React 19 compatibility was always "coming soon." The GitHub issues became a graveyard of frustrated developers and unresolved problems.

Meanwhile, Vite had Evan You and the Vue team, Next.js had Vercel's entire engineering team, and React Router had Remix. CRA was fighting a war with a single-person army against well-funded competitors with dedicated teams and millions in VC backing.

CRA's biggest sin wasn't just being slow - it was teaching developers that build tools should be mysterious black boxes. When something broke (and it always did), you'd get cryptic webpack errors with no clue where to start. "Module not found: Can't resolve './index'" - great, which fucking index? The one in src? dist? node_modules? Could be anywhere. You'd spend hours googling Stack Overflow for webpack config voodoo.

The Real Lessons

CRA's death wasn't sudden - it was death by a thousand cuts:

1. Build performance that made developers question their career choices
2. Zero flexibility without ejecting into configuration hell
3. Missing modern React features that required framework support
4. Maintenance by a skeleton crew while competitors had dedicated teams
5. Architecture designed for 2016 React, not 2024 React

What You Should Actually Use Now

Your manager won't understand why you need a week to "just change the build tool" - show them side-by-side terminals with the 30-second CRA startup vs 1-second Vite startup. Make them watch you restart both dev servers. The productivity argument sells itself when they see it visually.

Stop overthinking it:

For new projects:

• Next.js if you want full-stack React with all the modern features
• Vite + React if you want fast builds and client-side only
• React Router if you need something between Vite and Next.js

For learning:

• Vite - same simplicity as CRA, but your dev server starts before you can blink
• CodeSandbox - online, no setup, perfect for tutorials
• StackBlitz - like CodeSandbox but runs Node.js in your browser

For existing CRA projects:

Plan your migration. You don't need to panic, but you're missing out on years of build tool improvements. Your future self will thank you for making the switch.

The React ecosystem moved on from CRA years before it was officially deprecated. The writing was on the wall - we just had to wait for the React team to acknowledge it.