Less code, more power: Why we rolled our own React Server Components framework

Aha! engineering team explains why they abandoned Gatsby and built a custom React Server Components (RSC) framework under 1,000 lines of code. The post walks through the problems with existing frameworks (opinionated architectures, growing JS bundle sizes, slow rebuild cycles), then provides a step-by-step guide to building a minimal RSC framework using Vite's official RSC plugin and React 19. The result cut JavaScript and JSON payload by 90% and time-to-interactive by over 80%. Code examples cover the three entry points (rsc, ssr, client), RSC payload streaming, HTML injection, and extension points like routing, client-side navigation, static site generation, and file-based routing. The post also compares major React frameworks (Next.js, React Router, TanStack Start, Waku, RedwoodSDK) and advises when building your own framework makes sense versus using an established one.