alright-react-app VS ReactTemplate

It's because most webpack projects compile jsx with babel and send the whole dependency chunk straight away. Use this generator to get top performance and maximum flexibility: https://github.com/DoneDeal0/alright-react-app

You can definitely send a pr. Someone did it yesterday and I merged it: https://github.com/DoneDeal0/alright-react-app/pull/2 .

Alright React App

Best template IMO: alright-react-app

Just create your project with alright react app, it's a pro template, and everything is already set up for you (testing, building, storybook, typescript, etc.). No wizardry, no hidden folders, everything is as it should be.

Another option would be this app generator.

Try this generator to get familiar with webpack. It's a professional app template (I use almost the same in a big SaaS app) that works exactly like CRA, BUT that exposes all the config.

I've never found CRA makes project management any easier (aside from the first few days after setting up a new project). In the long run it's always been a pain as it prevents you from touching most of the config. Personally I use this ReactTemplate which uses many of the same tools as CRA but with everything exposed and much more sensible defaults so it's easy to configure for whatever you want and nothing is forced upon you.

Most people have only ever used Webpack via CRA which is a terribly optimized config. If you design your own Webpack config it can be so fast that you won't notice it. (Example)

I recommend setting up tsconfig with strict mode enabled and ESLint and TypeScript ESLint rules to be fairly strict. This is a great way to learn with guard rails as it'll slap you when you try to do something which is unsafe or too loosely typed. Here's a reference ESLint config that is frequently updated with any newly released rules that fit well. This happens to be for a TypeScript React project, but you can always trim out the rules from plugins that aren't relevant for you.

Don't forget ESLint. Arguably more important than many of those other things for fixing the common mistakes that most developers make. And note that the recommended ESLint configs are incredibly conservative so you probably want to customize the rules to get much higher quality. An example of one of my recommended React/TypeScript ESLint configs.

And then I have a ton of code-level tools and configs that I use all the time. Many of which are in this React Template if you want to pick through it. There's code spellcheckers, dependency update checkers, extensive linting configs and more.

If you want a reference, take a look at this eslint config for some good rules to use.

If you want a reference, this ReactTemplate is very simple and in many cases can be used as a drop-in for CRA.

No reason to go overkill with a metaframework. All you need is a new build config. That's all CRA is, a collection of configuration files. I choose to just configure what I need myself so I have control over it and can easily customize it and get all of the features and performance that I want if I want it. The content of your app shouldn't need to change just because your build process changes. (If you want a reference, here's the React Template I start with.)

Yeah here's the config from my open source React Template: https://github.com/CreativeTechGuy/ReactTemplate/blob/main/.eslintrc.js

PS: If you are curious, this is my React Template that I was describing above.