There was a time when no-build meant: drop an .html, toss in some .js, ship it.
Zero configs, zero bundlers, zero waiting for webpack to “warm up.”
Why it was the best:
- Instant feedback. Change → refresh → done.
- Minimal brain tax. No million-line
vite.config.ts. - CDN caches raw files → edge is happy, users are happy, win-win for all.
Then we ruined it:
- Frameworks slapped “no-build” stickers , where the client had 50 deps just to load.
- even a semi-colon change, triggers cache invalidation, rebuild pipelines, and CI crying in a corner.
- Your “instant” site suddenly takes 2 minutes to redeploy because the CDN has to re-hydrate configs written by a soy dev.
Reality check:
- Real no-build is still insanely fast for small, minimal sites.
- If the app actually needs React/Next-level interactivity, sure, I’ll use them.
- But if I can rawdog the DOM with plain HTML/JS, I’ll always prefer that.