HACKER Q&A
📣 rchaves

BlitzJS, RedwoodJS, RefineJS or something else for fullstack JavaScript?


Hello dear javascript haters and lovers, I want to build an app which will need a complete framework, Rails/Phoenix style, CRUD and DB heavy, with also a lot of interactions on the frontend, heavy on React, I thought at this point the JS community would have settled on one choice for this, but seems like this is not possible in JS world.

My goal is to have a very integrated front and backend, fully typed and safe, I want to waste no time dealing with different services and network and APIs and all that, having a single language for it all also helps, hence javascript (typescript to be more precise).

I never really got over the massive productivity I got from Rails 10 years ago, I feel I get close to it with Elixir/Phoenix (and love the performance) but let's be honest it's just not as popular so it doesn't have integrations for literally everything for me to just install as a dependency, and also no static types and would be no single language.

So, I came across those options in the title, which one should I choose? Blitz.js seems nice, Rails inspired and structured, which I like, however, people keep suggestion RedwoodJS, I don't understand why. I liked Blitz better than Redwood from first glance because they advertise themselves on being a layer on top of NextJS, which is good because I really want to piggyback on NextJS massive popularity.

Now, refine sounds newer and shinier, but the fact that they focus more on being flexible with everything than strong conventions and structure makes me doubtful

I don't know how many other 10k+ stars fullstack JS frameworks are there, if you know another one do tell, but what is your take? Which one should I choose? Why?

  👤 innocentoldguy Accepted Answer ✓
I find Elixir/Phoenix to be the most pleasant and robust tech stack I've ever worked with for web development. If I need a backend integration that doesn't exist, I just write it. Elixir makes doing so fairly easy. LiveView makes including frontend JavaScript simple, too, if you need a JavaScript library to provide something LiveView doesn't include. The nice thing is that you're writing Elixir code for virtually everything. Elixir is also far more scalable and performant than any JS framework can be, with a lot less cost and effort, which is nice.

I've used Elixir and Phoenix to build multiple database-heavy web applications with hundreds of thousands of users (if not millions) in the finance, gaming, and BI arenas since 2015 and have never found it lacking. I wouldn't let a perceived lack of popularity concern you. The project is alive and active and shows no signs of slowing down.

My happiness at work is the most important thing for me and Elixir plays a huge role in that. I think a good way to make Elixir more popular and support more integrations is to use it. ;)