Why Nue?
Nue is a design engineering framework that offers unmatched performance, simplicity, and a content-first development model. Here’s why it’s a great fit for your next project:
1. Development experience
Nue enhances the development experience by instantly detecting changes in content, data, layouts, styles, components, and islands, and applying them to your browser in real time with its intelligent diff and patch system. This creates a lightning-fast feedback loop that boosts your productivity and makes the development process more enjoyable:
With no burden of countless and unnecessary JavaScript abstractions and dependencies, Nue is blazing fast, leaving monolithic frameworks in the dust:
| Framework | Next.js | Nue |
|---|---|---|
| NPM modules | 300+ | 10+ |
| Project weight | 300M+ | 10M+ |
| Build speed / 10 pages | 10+ seconds | 0.01+ seconds |
| Build speed / 100 pages | 30+ seconds | 0.1+ seconds |
| Hot-reload times / complex app | 1 - 5s | 0.05 - 0.3s |
2. Design engineering
Nue is built on progressive enhancement, fundamentally transforming how websites are developed. What once required a React specialist and extensive TypeScript effort can now be achieved with a concise, standards-based codebase, allowing you to focus on what matters: content, layout, design, and motion.
![[button.above.zoom popovertarget=compare label='See the difference']](/img/clean-code-big.png)
3. Resulting sites
Nue helps developers create stunning, fast, and user-friendly websites with features like turbolinking, CSS view transitions, and interactive islands.
Surprisingly, these rich, interactive sites remain incredibly lean, similar in size to text-only websites. For comparison, here’s how this documentation area stacks up against the Next.js documentation:
| Resources | Next.js | Nue | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| HTML document | 51kB | 10kB | 5 × smaller |
| CSS | 62kB | 1kB | 60 × less |
| JavaScript | 531kB | 7kB | 75 × less |
| Total | 644kB | 19kB | 30 × less |
Who is nue good for?
Nue is a great fit for:
Beginner web developers: Those looking to bypass frontend redundancy and work directly with the Web Standard Model: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Experienced JavaScript developers: Those frustrated with the overwhelming amount of abstractions in the React stack and seeking simpler ways to develop professional websites.
Design-focused teams: Those prioritizing user experience and design systems, leveraging modern CSS to create efficient, lightweight websites that enhance usability without the bloat of JS monoliths.
In short: if you’re looking to build beautiful and innovative websites with faster tooling and a simpler development model, Nue is the right choice for you.
Terminology
Key terms mentioned in this article:
- Asset hot-reloading
A feature that instantly applies changes across all asset types—content, data, layouts, styles, and components—for faster, smoother development.
- Turbolinking
A technique that speeds up navigation by loading pages with AJAX, enabling faster transitions without full page reloads.
- View transitions
A feature that provides smooth visual transitions between different states or pages, enhancing user experience with fluid navigation.
- Interactive islands
A design pattern that allows specific sections of a page to be interactive while the rest remains static, enhancing performance and user experience.
- JS monolith
JavaScript bundles that pack numerous features into a single file, often leading to complexity, reduced clarity, and maintenance challenges.