At some point, framework choice stopped being a meaningful conversation and turned into a habit people repeat because they don’t know what else to hold on to. The industry still talks about frameworks as if they are decisive, as if picking the right one will protect you from deeper issues, but that belief no longer matches reality.- Not emotionally.
- Not technically.
- Not historically.
This isn’t a reaction to one bad release or one disappointing year. It’s the result of watching the same patterns repeat across different tools, different teams, and different companies until it becomes obvious that the problem isn’t where everyone keeps pointing.
The Problem Was Never One Framework
In 2025, a lot of people finally noticed something that had been quietly true for years. When things went wrong, they didn’t go wrong in isolation. Security issues, broken updates, unexpected regressions, performance problems, and ecosystem failures showed up everywhere. It didn’t matter which framework you were using, how popular it was, how long it had been around, or how many companies depended on it.
What failed wasn’t a framework. What failed was the assumption that frameworks operate independently.
They don’t.
They all sit on the same foundations.
- The same package registry.
- The same build tools.
- The same runtimes.
- The same browsers.
When pressure builds at that level, everything above it feels the shock. Changing frameworks doesn’t change that reality, and pretending otherwise just delays the moment when you have to confront it.
Frameworks Became Too Big to Matter the Way They Used To
Framework choice mattered when frameworks were small. When they were replaceable. When they did one job and stayed out of everything else. That version of the ecosystem doesn’t exist anymore.
Modern frameworks control large portions of the system. Rendering, routing, data flow, server execution, caching, and sometimes even how your app is deployed and scaled.
They are not libraries you plug in and swap out. They are environments you build inside.
Once a tool reaches that level of control, it stops being something you can meaningfully compare on surface features. Syntax differences stop mattering. Philosophy stops mattering. What you are really choosing is how much complexity you are willing to inherit upfront.
That’s why the old debates sound hollow now. They’re arguing about taste while ignoring weight.
The Dependency Graph Is the Actual Framework
If you listen to people who maintain large codebases, this is where the conversation always ends up.
- Not in JSX versus templates.
- Not in signals versus state.
But in dependency management and failure modes.
Most applications today are defined more by what they depend on than by what they explicitly contain. Hundreds of packages, thousands of indirect dependencies, and very little visibility into how all of it behaves as a whole. That situation exists regardless of which framework you choose, because all of them rely on the same underlying ecosystem.
Once you accept that, framework choice stops feeling like control and starts feeling like branding.
Why Vanilla JavaScript Keeps Coming Back
People like to frame the return to vanilla JavaScript as nostalgia or minimalism. It isn’t. It’s a response to loss of trust.
When systems become too layered to reason about, developers fall back to what they can fully understand. Not because it’s trendy, but
- because it’s stable.
- Because it behaves predictably.
- Because when something breaks
You can trace it without digging through abstractions written by someone else for a different problem.
This is why vanilla JavaScript never disappeared and why its presence is becoming more visible again going into 2026. Not as a replacement for frameworks, but as a reference point. A baseline. A reminder of how much complexity has been added and how little of it is actually required for most applications.
People don’t go back to vanilla because it’s better. They go back because it’s clear.
Experts Aren’t Arguing Anymore. They’re Stepping Back.
If you pay attention to what experienced developers are actually saying, not what gets amplified on social media, you’ll notice something. The arguments have faded. The certainty has faded. What’s left is caution.
Not fear. Caution.
Less excitement about new abstractions. More focus on reducing moving parts. Less obsession with picking the “right” tool. More emphasis on understanding the system as a whole.
That shift didn’t happen because people gave up. It happened because they learned where effort actually pays off and where it doesn’t.
This Is Not a Call to Action
There’s no advice here. No conclusion telling you what to use. No suggestion that frameworks are mistakes or that everyone should abandon them.
This is just an observation.
Framework choice no longer defines the outcome of a project in the way it once did. The ecosystem has grown too interconnected, too layered, and too dependent on shared infrastructure for that to be true anymore. People keep returning to simpler tools not because they are regressing, but because complexity stopped delivering proportional value.
You can accept that or ignore it. Either way, it doesn’t change what’s already happening.
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© Muhammad Usman
WordPress Developer | Website Strategist | SEO Specialist
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