Three years ago I started building frontends with React, and this was the first time I've built a serious app without any frameworks. I was surprised about how easy it actually is, and I've since questioned many of my own uses of frameworks in situations that weren't completely necessary.

As an extra challenge I decided to compare the end speed of different production environments, so I built three apps:

• One with Express on Heroku: https://github.com/librity/nc_nomentum

• One with just static files on Github Pages: https://github.com/librity/nc_nomentum_gio

• One with Next.JS on Vercel: https://github.com/librity/impetus

The Vercel app is faster by a couple seconds. I don't know how much of this is due the Next.JS or Vercel, and I would like to ask someone that knows.

I'm glad I took this challenge and ended up with an app I actually use every day. I'll definitely be adding more features to it soon. The slack community was also very welcoming, and I had a good time with the Koreans. They're a kind and helpful lot 💖🇰🇷