What Is Vite? Why it replaced Create React App for Devs

For years, Vite was simply the command used to start React projects. A routine request to update a Vite proxy configuration led to a closer look at why Vite starts almost instantly, why Create React App began to feel slow, and how modern frontend tooling actually works.

What you’ll learn

By the end of this article, you’ll understand:

• Why Vite was created
• Why Create React App started feeling slow
• How native ES modules changed frontend development

A routine proxy configuration request

It started as a five-minute task: update the Vite proxy configuration.

On the surface, this looked like a routine change. Opening vite.config.ts to make a small update turned into something bigger: a closer look at what modern frontend tooling actually does behind the scenes.

Opening vite.config.ts for the first time

For a long time, Vite was just a tool used to start new React projects, and the workflow rarely changed:

npm create vite@latest
cd my-app
npm install
npm run dev

A few seconds later, the development server would be running, ready to build features on top of. That was the extent of most developers’ relationship with Vite: it was faster than Create React App, it started almost instantly, and that was enough.

It’s easy to never ask why it’s fast, never open the documentation, and never touch vite.config.ts unless absolutely necessary. Vite becomes, simply, a better way to bootstrap a……Read more