Building a Next-Gen Fullstack App: React Router v7, Hono, and Cloudflare

Why I left Next.js behind and fully embraced standard web APIs. The landscape of frontend development is shifting towards leaner, faster, and more standard-compliant tools.

The Problem with Heavy Frameworks

Over the past few years, meta-frameworks have grown increasingly complex. While they offer incredible out-of-the-box features, the cognitive load and vendor lock-in have become significant trade-offs.

You often find yourself fighting the framework rather than building the product. Hydration issues, complex caching layers, and proprietary routing systems make long-term maintenance fundamentally harder.

Embracing React Router v7

React Router v7 represents a massive leap forward. By merging with the Remix architecture, it provides a phenomenal data loading and mutation model that leans entirely on standard web Request and Response objects.

• Standard APIs: No magic getServerSideProps. Just standard loader and action functions.
• Nested Routing: Granular error boundaries and loading states without full-page reloads.
• Future Proof: Built on standards that will survive the next hype cycle.

The Power of Hono & Cloudflare

By pairing React Router with Hono, we get an ultra-fast, edge-ready backend. Cloudflare Workers allow this entire application to run geographically close to every user on earth with virtually zero cold starts.

Combine this with Cloudflare D1 (Serverless SQLite) and you have a completely globally distributed, ACID-compliant database with almost zero infrastructure management.

The future of web development isn't about building bigger frameworks. It's about combining powerful, focused tools that adhere strictly to web standards.

This blog itself is built on this exact stack. The navigation is instant, the deployments take seconds, and the global edge performance is unmatched.