React vs HTMX: Why we chose HTMX? 

In the HTMX vs React debate, we made a difference choice. At EcoTree, an e-commerce site with a PHP backend using Symfony, we needed to manage a customer's shopping basket efficiently. For our customer area, React provided the necessary intricate interactions and polished user experience, especially since it’s behind an authentication gate and not intended for search engine indexing. However, for the rest of the website, which needed to be indexed by Google, server-side rendering with Symfony’s templating engine (Twig) was more suitable to ensure fast page loads and better SEO performance.
However, we faced issues with an outdated jQuery library called SimpleCart, which managed the shopping basket locally on the client’s browser. This method prevented us from knowing if users had issues during checkout or if items in their basket were about to sell out, as this information was not stored on the server. We explored three solutions: server-side rendering, React, and HTMX. Server-side rendering would result in a poor user experience due to full-page reloads, and React, although powerful, could lead to a bloated bundle and slow page loads. HTMX emerged as the optimal solution, allowing us to update parts of the interface based on server-side logic without reloading the page, thus providing a smooth user experience and maintaining fast load times for SEO.
Choosing between HTMX and React depends on the specific requirements of the project. Use React for complex, interactive interfaces that demand immediate feedback and where interactivity is crucial. React is ideal for applications behind authentication gates where SEO is not a primary concern. In contrast, HTMX is beneficial for managing server-side state updates on static pages, connecting different UI elements without the overhead of a full-page reload. HTMX ensures fast load times essential for SEO while still allowing partial updates based on server responses. At EcoTree, HTMX was the better solution for updating the shopping basket across different pages, providing a seamless user experience and improving our ability to track user interactions and inventory status on the server. This approach demonstrated that a hybrid solution, leveraging both HTMX and React based on context-specific needs, can offer the best of both worlds in web development.
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