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FEATURES.md

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⚠️ This document is work-in-progress. It isn't exhaustive.

TO-DO: add the features missing in this list.

Features

All essentials:

  • 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 Vike features:

  • Do-one-thing-do-it-well architecture
  • From a server-perspective, Vike is just a middleware (a pure function)
    • Vike can be easily integrated into any deployment strategy
    • Especially important for large companies that already have a deployment architecture
  • Vike allows the user to use different UI frameworks for the same app
    • For example, a Vike sponsor uses Vike 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 fall back to React, e.g. if a page needs some React library".
  • 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 primitives allowing users to deeply integrate with data fetching tools.
    • For example, Vike sponsors use it to deeply integrate Relay. (Facebook's internal framework deeply integrates with Relay in ways that aren't possible with Next.js.)
  • URL rewriting for both novel DX and novel UX around authentication and authorization
  • Domain-driven file structure

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://vike.dev/pageContext) for backwards/forward page transition animations
  • Vike can be loaded twice (or more) on the server-side, (some deployment architectures need this)
  • Catches and interrupts infinite loops of URL redirections and URL rewrites
  • Supports @vitejs/plugin-legacy.

And lots of details:

  • Automatic frontend deployment synchronization
  • 93 warning 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 Vike app hanging?")
    • Warning is shown when client runtime is included twice in the bundle
    • Warning wrongly using process.env.NODE_ENV, including docs: https://vike.dev/NODE_ENV
  • 294 helpful error messages. For example:
    • Upon a 404 in dev, the complete list of routes is shown
    • Helpful error when different versions of Vike are loaded
    • Typo in an option name (with "Did you mean xxx instead?")
  • Proper development error handling (hard to achieve, especially since Vite is bogus about it)
  • User can use history.pushState(): Vike's router detects that and gets out of the user's way

Misc: