JavaScript retains the reign as one of the most used programming languages. Due to this fact, this programming language also has many libraries and frameworks. React is one of the most popular JavaScript libraries.
React also comes with many frameworks and libraries designed to perform different functions. A web framework provides a structured way of creating a web application. Instead of creating everything from scratch, frameworks provide reusable code that developers can use in their applications.
Remix is one of the latest React web frameworks that has gained much traction lately. This article will define what is Remix framework, its features, how to set it up, the use cases of Remix, and its limitations.
What is Remix Framework?
Remix is a full-stack web development framework built on top of React. You can use a Remix app to create your app’s backend and front end. Remix lets you focus on the UI and help you deliver a resilient and fast user experience.
This framework can be described as four things: a compiler, a browser framework, a server framework, and an HTTP handler.
Remix was originally a paid service but was made open-source in late 2021. It was also acquired by Shopify in 2022.
Remix Framework Features
- Remix stacks: This Remix CLI feature allows you to generate Remix apps fast. Some of these stacks are built-in. You can also create an application from scratch on your own. The official built-in stacks have features such as automatic deployment pipelines, databases, testing, authentication, and linting. Some of the stacks are the popular Blues Stack, the Indie Stack, and the Grunge Stack.
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR): This framework enables server-side rendering of React components. The initial rendering on Remix happens on the server, sending a fully rendered HTML document to the client. Server-side rendering has several benefits, like improving accessibility, allowing search engines to crawl the content, and improving speed.
- Routing with nested routes: Remix uses React Router 6. With this framework, you only need to drop the files into the route folder, and Remix’s route module will transform them into navigable paths. A nested route is a route contained inside another route.
- Supports TypeScript and JavaScript: You can use Remix irrespective of whether you are using JavaScript or TypeScript. The advantage of using TypeScript is that it allows you to declare variables and make it easy to catch errors early.
- Built-in Data Loading and Caching: This framework allows developers to define loaders that fetch data from various sources. Remix handles data fetching on both the client and server sides. The caching mechanism provided by this framework makes it easy to reduce unnecessary data fetching and optimize subsequent requests.
- Code splitting and pre-fetching: You can split the code in a Remix app into small, loadable bits on demand. This approach reduces the initial bundle size and prefetching capabilities that loads data and code in the background.
Benefits of Remix Framework
- Full-stack: Most people use different languages or frameworks to create their apps’ client and server sides. For instance, you can use React for the front end and use a Node.js framework like ExpressJS for your backend. In other cases, you can use a Python framework like Django in your backend. Remix is a full-stack framework, which means your front-end and back-end will be on the same app.
- Excellent data handling: Remix relies on native browser features and conventions. The exceptional data flow makes it easy to transmit the data between the front-end and back-end of your application.
- Easy state handling: Managing state in React applications can be a pain, and most developers use third-party libraries like Redux. Remix uses loaders to manage the state on the server side. You can use the ‘useLoaderData’ attribute from any component in the current route.
- Error boundaries: If you get an error in a nested route or component in a Remix app, the errors will be limited to only that component. Such an error will not break the entire app, like in other frameworks. Even though you can implement the error boundary feature in some React frameworks like Next.js, this feature is built-in in Remix.
Prerequisites of Setting up a Remix
If you want to set up a Remix app, these are some of the things you need;
- Node.js version from 14.17.0 or higher
- A package manager like npm (7 or greater)
- A code editor
- An understanding of how React apps work
How to set up “Hello, World!” on Remix
We will create a simple project and name it “Remix-app”. You can follow along;
- Navigate to the location where you want to create your application, open your terminal and run this command;
npx create-remix@latest remix-appThe terminal will prompt you to answer several questions and set up your application. We can stick with the basics and select TypeScript as our language.
- Navigate into the created app (Remix-app) and open it in your favorite code editor. The folder structure will be as follows;
- Build your app using this command;
npm run build- Start the development server using this command;
npm startYou can now open the window on your browser using http://localhost:3000 link and this will appear on your browser;
- Modify the contents of the
app/root.tsxfile with the following;
import { LiveReload } from "@remix-run/react";
export default function App() {
return (
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charSet="utf-8" />
<meta
name="viewport"
content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"
/>
<title>Remix Demo</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello world
<LiveReload />
</body>
</html>
);
}The rendered page will be as follows;
Where is Remix Framework Used
Just like Next.js and React, Remix can be used to build different application types. These are some of the best use cases;
- Single-page applications: All the code in a Remix app is loaded once. The server-rendered approach allows fast initial loads while the client handles the subsequent requests seamlessly.
- SEO-friendly websites: Remix uses the pre-rendering feature to generate static HTML pages. This makes it possible to index websites even if you are dealing with dynamic content.
- Dynamic websites: Remix uses server-side rendering in its applications. SSR loads the pages on the server before sending an HTML page to the client. Remix thus becomes a perfect fit for websites whose content is dynamically generated.
How Remix Framework Works on the Server & Client-Side
Server-side rendering
Remix renders your code in plain HTML on the server side. This approach reduces the amount of JavaScript, thus increasing the loading speed. Remix basically uses native ‘action’ and ‘loader’ functions. The server will perform any server-side actions you provide, render the React code plain and HTML, and then send it to the client browser.
Client-side rendering
Remix, just like Next.js, offers the ‘prefetching’ feature that offers smooth navigation to the users.
In Next.js, the <link> component lets our website preload a page to which the <link> redirects and doesn’t have to wait for the page to download. However, such an approach only works well with static websites.
Remix uses the <link rel="prefetch"> feature, which makes it easy to fetch <links> and any other pages. Remix thus makes it fast to load pages where the content keeps changing based on the user inputs.
Remix Limitations
- Small community: Remix was originally a paid framework. However, it was made open-source in 2021 and is still young. This means limited resources and tools exist to make your app creation a breeze.
- Steeper learning curve: Remix introduces the nested routes concept and may be confusing if you come from React or its frameworks like Next.js. However, once you get the hook, using this framework becomes easy.
What is the Future of Remix?
- We are likely to see increased adoption: Remix is still young. Developers might not have discovered its potential, and we are likely to see more companies and developers using it in the future.
- The ecosystem is likely to grow: Remix still has few tools and libraries to support its ecosystem. We can expect more tools and libraries as its adoption grows.
- The community will grow: A community is critical in the growth of a framework/ programming language. We expect the community to grow as developers discover Remix’s gems.
The answer to this question will depend on the nature of the app you are creating. If you want to build a full-stack app using one framework, Remix will be better than Next.js. However, if you want a mature framework with loads of resources and a good following, Next.js will be your perfect choice.
Yes. It is a good framework to build your entire full-stack app using one framework. It is also an awesome framework if you want technology with error boundaries feature built-in. However, Remix is not the right framework if you want a framework with a large community and lots of resources.
Yes. If you are conversant with deploying Node.js applications, working with and deploying Remix apps will also be a breeze.
Remix is a React framework. You thus need to understand how React works before you start learning Remix. However, if your time is limited and you want to learn just one framework, the choice will depend on your end goals.
Remix allows you to build full-stack apps. You can also learn Remix even if you don’t grasp React, but the learning curve will be steep.
However, if you use React, you must use a backend framework like Django or Ruby on Rails if you want a full-stack app. If you decide to learn React, you can bank on its many resources and community.
Conclusion
It is still early to determine whether Remix is the future of web development. Its amazing features, such as flexible routing, server-side rendering, code splitting, and the focus on developer experience, make it a very promising web framework.
However, Remix is still young, and its resources are still limited. It also has a small community. The Remix JS framework’s tools and libraries are few, as most open-source frameworks depend on community support and third-party tools.
You may also explore some frameworks and libraries to Know as a full-stack developer.
