[leotaku]

I can see how Alpine makes some extremely simple things simpler than React, but it also really seems to restrict me in how I can refactor my website or app. With React I can keep things almost as simple as with Alpine, or move to more integrated solutions (e.g. SSR with hydration) without rewriting much of my existing code. Alpine basically has me stuck with only client side rendering without a lot of optimizations.

The only downside I see is that, unlike with Alpine, a build step is mandatory. However, I assume that any real production Alpine app will also want to include a build step, if only to decrease bundle size. It's such a low-hanging fruit and improves the experience for basically any user.

I get why Alpine is interesting from an idealistic view of avoiding complexity, but React+JSX just seems much more pragmatic to me.