The web keeps getting more complicated

Every week, a new framework appears or an existing one gets another major update. The list keeps growing, and plenty of those tools feel disposable before they have had time to settle.

Frameworks can make development faster, but a site does not need visual complexity for its own sake. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are often enough to build something useful.

I saw how quickly the version cycle moves when I used Next.js. I built a website with Next.js 13, and Next.js 14 came out the next day. The site still worked, but the timing made the code feel outdated immediately.

That site also had a guestbook. It did not need a database. A simpler setup was enough, and adding a database would have created more work without solving a real problem.

This post described an earlier, deliberately small version of the site. The current repository uses Astro and MDX. The same principle still applies: for this kind of site, a small implementation is enough. I would rather keep a small implementation than add a framework just to follow the current trend.