⚠️ This document is work-in-progress. It isn't exhaustive.
TO-DO: add the features missing in this list.
All must-haves:
- All render modes: SSR, SPA, and HTML-templating (zero browser-side JavaScript)
- Each page can choose a different render mode
- Pre-rendering (AKA SSG)
- Each page can opt in/out
- Client-side routing
- Data-fetching
- Both isomorphic data fetching (to avoid a network detour over the server), and server-only data fetching (to be able to directly read the database)
- Optimal code-splitting (each page has its own client-side bundle, while common code is extracted and shared)
- Filesystem Routing
- Layouts
- Route guards
- HTML streaming
- Link prefetching
- i18n
- Base URL
I'm not aware of any framework that implements all these features which I consider must-haves. (For example Next.js is missing isomorphic data fetching.)
Unique vite-plugin-ssr features:
- Do-one-thing-do-it-well architecture
- From a server-perspective, vite-plugin-ssr is just a middleware (a pure function)
- Vite-plugin-ssr can be easily integrated into any deployment strategy
- Especially important for large companies that already have a deployment architecture
- vite-plugin-ssr allows the user to use different UI frameworks for the same app
- For example, a vite-plugin-ssr sponsor uses vite-plugin-ssr to use Solid for all its pages except for one page that uses React because it needs a React library that doesn't exist for Solid
- Important for Solid: for React users that are tempted to use Solid, Solid can sell the story "try Solid while being able to fallback to React, e.g. if a page needs some React library".
- For example, a vite-plugin-ssr sponsor uses vite-plugin-ssr to use Solid for all its pages except for one page that uses React because it needs a React library that doesn't exist for Solid
- Users can build a custom Framework-as-a-Product. (Vike has been designed so that frameworks can be built on top of it.)
- Low-level hooks allowing deep integration with data fetching tools.
- For example, vite-plugin-ssr sponsors use it to deeply integrate Relay. (Facebook's internal framework deeply integrates with Relay in ways that aren't possible with Next.js.)
Marketing boost of using "Vike - The Open Framework" — collaboration and openness being one of Vike's core value.
No known bugs, most notably:
- Rock-solid HTML streaming support (hard to achieve)
- Rock-solid client-side navigation scroll restoration (hard to achieve)
- Rock-solid URL handling (much harder than it seems)
- In general, things just work. No surprise of stumbling upon some bug.
Things missing that some frameworks have (but is on the roadmap):
- Nested Layouts (TODO: update ticket with latest design)
- Typesafe links (#698)
- Single Route File
Minor features that can be life changing for some users:
- Zero runtime dependency on Node.js
- Tauri support
- Ability to set two Base URLs: one for the static assets (CDN deployments) and another one for the SSR server.
- Low-level i18n hooks which allow to implement i18n without compromise (not a single user has reported a missing i18n use case, covering all i18n use cases is hard)
- Not only Route Guards but also Route Functions (define your route with a function for full programmatic flexibility)
pageContext.isBackwardsNavigation(https://vite-plugin-ssr.com/pageContext) for backwards/forward page transition animations- vite-plugin-ssr can be loaded twice (or more) on the server-side, (some deployement architectures need this)
And lots of details:
- Automatic frontend deployment synchronization
93warning messages that help the user. For example:- Warning is shown when a hook takes more than 4 seconds to resolve (avoiding the user to ask himself "why is my vite-plugin-ssr app hanging?")
- Warning is shown when client runtime is included twice in the bundle
294helpul error messages. For example:- Upon a 404 in dev, the complete list of routes is shown
- Helpful error when different versions of vite-plugin-ssr are loaded
- Typo in an option name (with "Did you mean xxx instead?")