Around 2020—before SolidJS even reached 1.0—it felt like the future.

It was fast, elegant, reactive in the right way, and refreshingly simple compared to modern React’s ever‑growing surface area. I used it happily for real products.

And yet—today—I’m switching back to React.

Not because SolidJS failed. But because the world around it changed.

This post explains why, especially in the context of AI‑generated code, collaboration, and long‑term system evolution.

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SolidJS Was (and Still Is) Technically Excellent

Let’s get this out of the way first.

SolidJS is:

• Extremely fast
• Predictable
• Built on fine‑grained reactivity
• Close to how people wish React worked

In many ways, Solid feels like handwritten code:

• Minimal abstractions
• Direct data flow
• Fewer “magic” behaviors
• Less indirection

If you’re a single developer or a small, stable team, SolidJS is still a great choice.

So why leave?

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The Shift: From Handwritten Code to AI‑Generated Code

The biggest change isn’t React.

It’s how code gets written.

In 2026, a large percentage of UI code is:

• Generated by AI
• Refactored by AI
• Extended by AI
• Explained by AI

This changes the calculus dramatically.

Handwritten code optimizes for:

• Elegance
• Minimalism
• Personal taste
• Deep understanding

AI‑generated code optimizes for:

• Familiar patterns
• Massive training data
• Copy‑pastable conventions
• Ecosystem gravity

React wins hard in that world.

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React Is the “Common Language” of AI

Most AI models have:

• Seen millions of React components
• Ingested years of React examples
• Learned idiomatic React patterns deeply

When you ask an AI to:

• Build a chat UI
• Add streaming tokens
• Integrate auth
• Wire up a dashboard
• Refactor state logic

It almost always assumes React.

With SolidJS, the AI often:

• Hallucinates APIs
• Writes React‑style patterns that don’t apply
• Requires manual correction
• Needs you to “teach” it Solid repeatedly

That friction compounds over time.

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Ecosystem Gravity Matters More Than Framework Purity

In the Gen‑AI era, velocity comes from composition, not purity.

React has:

• Better AI SDK examples
• More UI kits
• More chat / streaming / agent demos
• Better integration with modern meta‑frameworks

Even if SolidJS is cleaner, React is:

• Easier to glue things together with
• Easier to hand off to collaborators
• Easier to debug with AI assistance

The ecosystem isn’t just bigger—it’s where the momentum is.

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AI Changes What “Maintainable” Means

Traditionally, maintainability meant:

• Clean abstractions
• Minimal dependencies
• Fewer concepts

Now, maintainability also means:

• AI can understand it
• AI can modify it safely
• AI can extend it without breaking things

React code—even when verbose—tends to be:

• More explicit
• More pattern‑based
• Easier for AI to reason about

SolidJS code is elegant, but often too clever for AI models trained on React‑first assumptions.

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The Human Factor: Collaboration and Hiring

This part is boring—but decisive.

If you:

• Collaborate with contractors
• Onboard new engineers
• Share snippets asynchronously
• Expect others to modify your UI

React is simply safer.

Not because it’s better—but because it’s familiar.

AI magnifies this effect:

• New contributors rely on AI explanations
• AI explanations are best for React
• React becomes the path of least resistance

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A Subtle Tradeoff: Control vs Leverage

SolidJS gives you:

• More control
• More precision
• More satisfaction as an engineer

React gives you:

• More leverage
• More compatibility
• More acceleration via AI

In the Gen‑AI era, leverage beats control more often than it used to.

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My Current Rule of Thumb

• Existing SolidJS apps? Keep them
• Solo, high‑performance UI? SolidJS is great
• AI‑heavy UI, agent consoles, dashboards? React
• Teams + AI + velocity? Definitely React

This isn’t a rejection of SolidJS. It’s an acknowledgment of the environment we’re building in.

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The Irony

The irony is that SolidJS often represents better engineering.

But React represents better alignment with:

• AI tooling
• Ecosystem momentum
• Collaboration reality

In a world where code is increasingly co‑written with machines, the winning framework isn’t the most elegant—it’s the most legible to both humans and AI.

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Final Thought

Framework choice used to be about:

“What do I enjoy writing?”

Now it’s also about:

“What can AI help me write, debug, and evolve fastest?”

Right now, that answer is React.

And that’s why I switched back.