Why I choose Blazor over React in 2025

[@parko1965]

30 years ago I learned Forth, C and C++ with no UI. Today I create Full Stack apps with Api's built with C# and clients built with Blazor Wasm, Avalonia and WinUI. The only server component is the Api.

[@zuhran9148]

there are loot of problems with WinUi

[@Kevmoens]

We’re discussing using Blazor Maui to make a web mobile and desktop solution. Our team also has suggested Avalonia. What are the disadvantages of Avalonia verse Blazor Maui hybrid approach? My concern would be about maintainability, future proofing and anything else that would limit solving typical business use cases.

[@muaadeeb9625]

It's Blazor for me.

[@jatinshah1]

Has anyone seen Radzen blazor component library? It has very rich styles , themes and interactive functionality . If you look at gridview control And tell me amount of less programming efforts required compared to react or not?

[@GavinLon]

Great point! :)

[@pookiepats]

Libs only offer benefits for a short time, you’d be surprised what you can do yourself if you actually learn the primitives.

[@REDnWHITEnGREY]

it's amazing!

[@SBDavin]

Even the new Blazor QuickGrid from Microsoft is pretty slick.

[@schoderfactory]

Did I miss the performance question in the video? How long does it take the browser to load the WASM in comparison to loading all React Javascript and UI components?

[@GavinLon]

Sure - so that is definitely a downside to WASM - because all the relevant dlls and files need to firstly be downloaded from the server which of course takes a long time. React will be far faster at this. But the advantage of WASM is that it can subsequently execute your code at near native speeds. From .NET 8 onwards you can use auto render mode which means you can initially load your components as Blazor Server components (meaning much faster initial load times - you don't need to immediately download all the dependency files from the server) - the WASM related files (dependency files) will then be downloaded in the background - your component can then run as a WebAssembly component - so using auto render mode - you are getting the best of both worlds - Balzor Server and WASM :)

[@hamadsherazi6896]

@@GavinLon perfect answer

[@schoderfactory]

@@GavinLon Do you see my point that when you made a decision and you tell others on what grounds you made this decision, that you are not convincing when you omit all counterarguments?

[@GavinLon]

@schoderfactory Its impossible to include every detail in these videos - and I certainly don't make decisions to omit all counter arguments. :) I always welcome counter arguments in the comments section as long as they are respectful and polite. This channel is about education and learning - not about me being right.

[@zarmeza1]

@@GavinLon "From .NET 8 onwards you can use auto render mode which means you can initially load your components as Blazor Server components", that sound cool.

[@slowjocrow6451]

What kills blazor for me is it seems to need a full rebuild just to change some html. This makes front end absolutely awful to tweak. It's averaging about 30 seconds for hot reload to show even a single character change

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your feedback :)

[@c1d3r-lf5ug]

VSCode have reliable blazor-web hot-reload although with some hiccups.

[@LieToM3]

I'm literary feeling this pain NOW on my project ... it's fucking nightmare even for my super strong laptop , to do a simple form I need to re build 999 times

[@imadabab]

Gavin. You are reading my mind. I agree with every word you have talked about. Blazor in my opinion is the best framework Microsoft had ever created. This is the best video in KZbin for dotnet developers. Hope to reach a million viewers. Thanks a lot for sharing. I subscribed long time ago.

[@GavinLon]

You are very kind. Thanks so much for your support. Great to have you as a subscriber. Now that you mention it, I also think that Blazor is the best framework that Microsoft has created too - I love it!

[@paultaylor5882]

Great video Gavin. There is probably no right answer on this one, just better for the project or for the available skill set. I am open minded when it comes to chosing the appropriate toolsets, and am still hopeful that some thing better still is around the corner. In the meantime I will be using both React (Remix) and Blazor, but if I'm honest, Blazor is my favourite to work with especially as most features are built into the framework.

[@GavinLon]

Absolutely - I think you are right - always good to keep an open mind when it comes to technology :)

[@trxe420]

For me it's Blazor, Angular just requires a whole lot more to get the same effect. I think what React and Angular have though is a much wider community and more options. That said though, it's still important to know JS and if you are going to you might as well also know how to use React or Angular. There are still far, far more opportunities in JS, but a lot of them are still using web api for the backend. Still, if all things were equal, I enjoy developing in Blazor a whole lot more.

[@GavinLon]

I totally agree with you :) I think if you can learn Blazor as well as React or Angular - that is definitely the best way to go. Like you say, JavaScript is a "must learn" especially for web developers.

[@ani-xu7jm]

Yes but React works. Blazor hangs sometimes randomly without any reason…

[@hamadsherazi6896]

I love blazor as it's a complete framework and libraries are shared

[@GavinLon]

Yes, I also love that about Blazor :)

[@adrianricardoscalia9228]

nextjs js or expo too

[@fadichamieh]

I run from Microsoft proprietary tech like I run the plague. Remember Silverlight? There is a reason why libraries like React gained popularity: simplicity, community, TTM.

[@GavinLon]

Microsoft has stated on several occasions that Blazor will always be supported and it is an excellent framework :)

[@LieToM3]

Member Berries

[@myanghua]

There’s one big difference here. Silverlight requires proprietary plugin to run while Blazor apps can run on ANY modern browsers, including mobile devices because WASM is an industrial standard.

[@fadichamieh]

@ Yeah but you're missing the point. If the tooling (Microsoft) isn't there you're on your own. Good luck with that!

[@cammosesSH]

@ you missed the point where microsoft has gone on the record 10,000 times laughing at the "bUt SiLvErLiGhT" crowd, reassuring Blazor isn't going anywhere 😅

[@renebu2204]

I cannot fully agree. I worked with Blazor a lot and have not the most experience with React. But a lot of "pro" points can be applied to React or at least Next.js as well which as you mentioned would also be an exciting comparison. But what definitely need to be mentioned that Blazor lacks also a lot of things compared to a JS Framework. - Dev Experience especially Hot Reload is so much worse - Initial Load Times and compatibility are pretty bad for WASM - StateManagment for Hybrid Projects can be pretty buggy - you often need JS Interop for bigger or more complex applications - the community is far smaller and there are a lot fewer 3rd party libaries

[@GavinLon]

I think you make good points here. Thank you for your well thought out comment. I'm certainly not saying Blazor is perfect and it certainly isn't a replacement for React (which, by the way, is a technology that I love working with). I love C# and for certain requirements (through Blazor) you will be able to use C# on the frontend and C# on the backend. That to me is quite a unique achievement (specifically C# on the frontend). This is coming from someone who worked with classic ASP and lots of JavaScript on the frontend many years ago (this is way before the JavaScript frontend frameworks existed) - so, for me working with C# on the frontend is an absolute luxury. :) Creating full-stack web applications in mostly C# is awesome! Having said that I certainly understand why React is the more popular choice for the frontend.

[@ahmetsse]

The problem is that the Blazor team at Microsoft consists of only six developers. (Via: Dan Roth)

[@GavinLon]

Dan Roth has said that Blazor is a mature framework at this point but Microsoft still plans to do a lot more with Blazor moving forward. It's the latest UI framework from Microsoft and is the most flexible. Please check out a recent interview that Nick Chapsas recently conducted with Dan Roth (this message is targeted at anyone who reads this comment. I suspect that @ahmetsse - the gentlemen who I am replying to here - has seen the interview) - kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKaveIubbpqeitE I thought it might be helpful to put what Dan Roth said into context. :) This is the part where Dan Roth says that 6 people are working full-time on Blazor framework. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKaveIubbpqeitE?t=2303 In the interview Dan Roth also speaks about how the Blazor team also works with other teams - so it's not as simple as just 6 engineers working on Blazor in isolation. I don't think you necessarily need hundreds of developers to ensure a great future for Blazor - at this point it is a mature Framework. The upgrade in .NET 8 was pretty significant. He also says that Blazor will always be supported. Blazor is obviously nowhere near as large as for e.g. React but it is a great technology - and I can think of several scenarios where it may be preferable to React (that of course doesn't mean that Blazor should always be chosen instead of React - there will be many scenarios where React is more appropriate).. One of the great advantages is that it provides .NET developers with the ability to code UI behavioural functionality for web apps using C# (with minimal reliance on JavaScript). So the frontend and the backend can be coded in C#. You can stay in the .NET ecosystem for both frontend and backend development. This is just one advantage. I can think of many more. :)

[@thiswallz]

I would definitly choose blazor for enterprises apps, for public facing, I have my doubts about integrating libraries such as motion or others for animations and so on.

[@GavinLon]

Great, thanks for your feedback :)

[@otabek_kholmirzaev]

If you need, then learn both! Don't compare them! You're a software engineer, you don't stick to a certain tech stack as long as you have strong fundamental knowledge!

[@GavinLon]

I don't disagree with you. I think it's great to learn as much as you can. Learning the fundamentals of programming is key, as you said. I would argue that sometimes it's good to have an overview knowledge of certain technologies so that you can prioritise which technologies should get the bulk of your time. :)

[@curtmantle7486]

Gavin literally encourages you to learn both in the first minute of the video. Comparing them is a legitimate and useful exercise to give people some info on which to prioritise first.

[@tabrezshaikh1984]

Comparison is must ..without is how you can take decisions in which scenario which tech skill provide more and easy to acceptable

[@NFM-nb7dl]

what about inertia js ?

[@GavinLon]

"Inertia allows you to create fully client-side rendered, single-page apps, without the complexity that comes with modern SPAs." - from the inertiajs website. It sounds interesting - I'll have to investigate this further :)

[@georgemilev4831]

I do like Blazor and agree with most of what you said. However, when it comes to blazor server, you skipped a big drawback of the technology - it is stateful. Which means it’s a lot harder to scale compared to a react or even a nexjs app.

[@GavinLon]

It all depends on how you design the architecture of the app. .NET in general is highly scalable - in fact it is a strong reason to choose .NET in the first place :)

[@mikejohneviota9293]

I prefer using vue or svelte between the two 😂

[@GavinLon]

I definitely want to explore Svelte more - I know a lot of people who speak highly of Svelte.

[@schoderfactory]

Cool. But why? Do you have any reasonable arguments?

[@mikejohneviota9293]

@@schoderfactory complexity and community

[@waleedbensumaidea3947]

thank you for this great video, but i want to hear your opinion about this KZbin video: 6 Reason to Skip Blazor in 2025 , channel name :Deploy & Destroy

[@GavinLon]

I haven't yet seen the video. I'll look it up and get back to you in the comments here. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve - I'm sure if I came at the subject from a different angle I could also rationalise reasons why not to use Blazor. From my experience with using Blazor I really love the technology. :)

[@waleedbensumaidea3947]

@GavinLon I really love to develop using Blazor. I started working with it over a year ago, and our team's performance has been very effective. We managed to release several projects within a year, despite many challenges. I am a strong supporter of Blazor and hope it continues to evolve in the future. The points mentioned by the video creator are very sensitive issues in Blazor, and if Microsoft focuses on them more, it could significantly enhance the framework.

[@GavinLon]

@@waleedbensumaidea3947 I'll definitely check it out, thank you :) Hopefully Microsoft will continue to invest in Blazor but it seems that Microsoft's main focus (as is the case with the rest of the world) is AI :)

[@Rajeshsingh-ws5th]

Blazor is good I love it. but if possible try making videos on advance security features when using web view in hybrid blazor app. Because most of the banks do not accept mobile app if a web view is used.

[@GavinLon]

Oh that is interesting and of course makes sense! Thank you for your comment. I'd love to do a video like that! Security is such an important topic - often over looked.

[@nicolassuarez2933]

Outstanding! What about UI?

[@GavinLon]

There are a growing number of third party UI component providers for Blazor, some examples are: Syncfusion Blazor, Radzen, Blazored, DevExpress Blazor, MudBlazor :)

[@nicolassuarez2933]

@GavinLon Im using Mudblazor, not even close to React but really good. Yesterday I saw Microsoft Loop UI is amazing! Is that .Net?

[@GavinLon]

@nicolassuarez2933 I'm not familiar with Loop UI but now that you mention I'll definitely have to check it out. Blazor isn't nearly as big as React in terms of third party libraries but it is definitely growing and there are definitely some good quality libraries out there. :)

[@shabanelmogy7912]

i think react better because statemanagement hotreload documentation work with javascript

[@GavinLon]

Great - thanks for your feedback :)

[@shabanelmogy7912]

l love blazor and i hope microsoft works on these points to make blazor on the top but team of blazor very small and must be bigger than current

[@PeacefulRaj-jf3yk]

I use aspnetcore api.. and blazor wasm pwa.. open telemetry grafana... No problems associated with javascript

[@GavinLon]

That sounds great! :)

[@zuhran9148]

the first reason of greatly integrating with .NET ecosystem . this reason can also be said about react .greatly integrated with JavaScript ecosystem. like wise can said other reasons . can use typescript and etc . the reasons are very vague .

[@GavinLon]

I think the reasons are clear. I would much rather develop an enterprise solution using the .NET eco-system than the JavaScript ecosystem and use a purpose built strongly typed language that is compiled. TypeScript is an after thought so as to provide JavaScript developers with the benefits of developing code using a strongly typed language (TypeScript has many benefits over JavaScript). However, ultimately the TypeScript code is transpiled into JavaScript and interpreted. C# is inherently statically typed and is compiled. Those are fundamental reasons but there are many more - I have covered JavaScript vs. C# before but happy to cover it again. Anyway, I appreciate your feedback, thank you :) Thank being said, of course there are many scenarios where React will be more appropriate than Blazor. I just prefer C# and .NET generally that coding in JavaScript or even TypeScript.

[@rmbl349]

can you pls always add in the title if it s WASM, or Serverside/Interactive Rendering?

[@MiguelHassedeOliveira]

Blazor is my choice for sure!... and Fluent UI.

[@GavinLon]

Fluent UI is great :)

[@ErnaSolbergXXX]

Its so much more efficient to work with blazor and a much better structure. Had in production already since it was beta and i dont regret moving everything into blazor

[@nicholasrodrigues3750]

I too, used to love react, but in the race to the backend (Next), I much more prefer blazor

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for sharing your experience and view :) I definitely prefer Blazor for full-stack development.

[@upandrunningcourses]

As a Blazor fan. I just don't like that Js error "A task got cancelled..."

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for sharing your feedback. :)

[@antondoit]

nice

[@GavinLon]

Thank you! :)

[@GilAguilar]

For me personally .NET is just another backend. Tightly coupling anything regardless of how it works still makes it not at all enticing. Id rather take a library over a framework any day of the week. If building the static assets is the glue. Using vite today with any approach and building directly into the wwwroot is much more effecient. This of course is after writing Frontend tests to ensure separation of concerns and code quality. Way faster iterations are realized and a way faster DOM is my goal. It’s just code at the end of the day to me. A different tool is needed and some tools just aren’t flexible enough. That’s why at the end of the day I love .NET web APIs and using JS always on the frontend. There is way more work for companies needing to make their UIs more modern looking. There is lots of legacy code out there that needs some love. If using Blazor gives me more options on revenue. I’d be using it more, however it’s mostly React, Vue or Angular with .NET backends. Looking forward to diving into .NET more because there is lots to work with. Thanks for sharing your content. Isn’t technology super cool. Have an amazing day, love your passion 🤟💙☕️

[@GavinLon]

Thanks man! Great comment. I do love technology. I also love using a JavaScript based SPA framework with a .NET backend. However, if I can get away with using C# on the frontend and backend then that is definitely my preference but for really complex UI's, React would be my technology of choice. :)

[@BeepBoop2221]

If you're going to end up needing js interoperability you may as well use JS from the get go. Blazor just never made sense to me.

[@Qrzychu92]

how often do you need it? Most of the things like maps, charts etc are already abstracted away through packages. For an admin panel having the abillity to call the db directly and put the results into a virtualized list is much more important than some visual funky stuff that would need JS interop

[@GavinLon]

I've found that there many occasions where Blazor can pretty much cover all the frontend functionality I need - but there will be times where you may need to integrate a JavaScript library into your code - for e.g. if you need to integrate a payment gateway into a shopping cart application (for e.g. PayPal), you may need to call a JavaScript function (in order to integrate the payment gateway into your code). So you may only need to integrate a small amount of JavaScript into your app - in this case - it can make sense to use Blazor - then you can use mostly C# throughout the full-stack application.

[@randyriegel8553]

I used to always use C# to build API's and wrote an angular front end. Then Blazor came out. I was using it as soon as it was in preview. I can do Javascript and Typescript but HATE them. For a client my quote depends on what they want me to write for them. If they want anything javascript related their price is higher... If I just do it in Blazor it will save them a few bucks. If the client makes my life harder I charge them more 😁

[@GavinLon]

More reasons to use Blazor. I love it!

[@pookiepats]

PHP 8.4 vanilla mode is better than any server side JavaScript could ever hope to be, it’s unnerving the amount of time snd energy people waste with server side JavaScript. Even Deno, a very respectable attempt to bring a sane set of defaults is laden with cruft. You will never escape the debt of your runtime, forever toil or just learn a proper server side language.

[@GavinLon]

I'm not a fan of using JavaScript on the server side either. Thank you for your insights :)

[@jscomputadores1049]

I prefer webapi +wpf/maui, because the user is on a computer or a smartphone, and I don't have to type endless amounts of div to just present a button or a text box

[@GavinLon]

I can certainly understand that point of view :) Thanks for your feedback!

[@eyassh6747]

While Blazor can be great I don't see myself writing ui in C# I only use the language as a backend

[@GavinLon]

I totally understand but it really is great being able to use C# and razor templates for creating UI interactive functionality. I would recommend trying it out. I do think React and Angular work really well on the frontend with .NET and C# on the backend. :)

[@twobitmachinesdev4757]

@@GavinLon I'm new to all of this. Area you saying I can use C#, and not html or css, to create web pages?? If so, that would be amazing.

[@GavinLon]

@twobitmachinesdev4757 No, unfortunately it's not that simple. :) C# can be used inside the browser instead of JavaScript (this is made possible through a technology known as WebAssembly). You'll still need to use HTML and CSS for the layout and styling of your web pages but you can use C# for creating behavioural functionality instead of JavaScript. You can implement the HTML interspersed with your C# using a template based technology called razor. :)

[@twobitmachinesdev4757]

@@GavinLon Thanks!

[@lordbacon4972]

I've been using the predecessor to Blazor called Razor and really happy with it. I'm starting a new project now so that's why I'm investigating what library/framework to use and initially I was considering between Angular and React for no reason other than to "modernize". But now you've given some good points to consider Blazor as well. My question is, since you say Blazor has the ability to incorporate Javascript (JS Interop), would it be possible to use Blazor with React together?

[@GavinLon]

I believe you can use React with Blazor via the JS interop feature but I haven't yet done this myself. I hope to make a video about it in the near future :) I would say if your project requires a really complex UI - then React or Angular is a better choice than Blazor. Blazor, however, does have its advantages like for e.g. you can use .NET on the frontend and the backend. :)

[@fadichamieh]

I believe it's possible, that's the beauty of the Web and its technologies. The question is why would you do that?! Ditch M$soft, go for React Server Components (or SveltKit), or even NextJS. Mixing too many things will wear you down.

[@damiansimonak7955]

Blazor failed me twice. I will prefer React if I would like to change maybe svelte, vue even angular.

[@GavinLon]

Okay - thanks for your feedback :)

[@jagadeeshvarmasvpkh2449]

For me react iam a javascript developer

[@GavinLon]

That's fair enough - I do love React but my preference is for Blazor - React with Typescript is pretty good.

[@dajma00]

I work with Blazor. However, the only issue I have with it and its quite significant... startup time with WASM, .NET and app require some time to load. You can use auto mode, but that creates more complexity and is hard to maintain. Even with auto mode, (and server mode with SignalR) the experience can be bad if the ping time to server is more than 100ms. Having said all that, I still use Blazor because it is quite easy to build and maintain apps. Everything c#, Linq, EF Core etc. are all the goodies you can use to create any kind of application.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for sharing your insights. :) I'd like to do a detailed test with auto mode to measure the load time performance. That would be interesting. :)

[@ulrich-tonmoy]

.Net has full web and native app ecosystem but that not much reach like react and even microsoft use react and react native in many of their service and even in windows instead of using their tools on the other hand meta uses react so they develop and improve what they think is lacking and need improvement while they do developing (i guess) so it makes it better and dev friendly and so on

[@happyfarang]

I think the reason MS is using react is legacy. After .NET 8.0 blazor have become useful. I suspect you will see more and more blazor things with MS in the future.

[@jatinshah1]

Have you checked Radzen blazor and fluent ui component library for blazor?

[@LehmannMr]

Sorry but when I compare the amount of tutorials about nextjs and react compared to blazor who cares whether blazor is better Blazor is nowhere near in the market like nextjs and react.

[@GavinLon]

I take your point but there are occasions (in my opinion) where Blazor is the better choice for addressing certain requirements. I think it's good to have a broad awareness of the options available.

[@terribleprogrammer]

I am finding this funny! 🤣

[@wilson.kutegeka]

I definitely prefer React for frontend and C# for API, i hear your point of view, the concern is the issue of presenting learning JS as a bad thing, in my opinion you are a better fullstack dev with both c# and js knowledge, the web literaly runs on js.

[@GavinLon]

I always encourage people to learn JavaScript :) it is still essential for all web developers to know at least the basics of JavaScript. If, however, you can get away with just using C# on the frontend (with minimal JavaScript) using Blazor and C# on the backend ,then that is great!

[@honoremugisha3116]

I developed Slot machine game entirely in blazor without a single line of JavaScript.

[@GavinLon]

@@honoremugisha3116 Very cool!!

[@kuyajon]

It is easier to write ui stuff in js framework like react. Once u need complex behavior, is really convenient and clean

[@DavidSmith-ef4eh]

it's better because of being able to hide the backend code from frontend developers. they would make it all a convoluted mess, it's enough they destroy the frontend.

[@zuhran9148]

blazer has only 6 employees working on it in Microsoft which shows how much they care about blazer . i don't think Microsoft is invested in blazer which makes me highly doubtful in the future of blazer .

[@GavinLon]

Blazor has been consistently improving since its inception. It's a unique technology in that you can develop SPA interactive functionality on the frontend using C# and couple this with the scalability advantages available through .NET on the server side. So you can develop highly performant full-stack enterprise applications using just C# and .NET I think Blazor has a great future.

[@valikonen]

"just frontend developer"...

[@tendainmupezeni5157]

can we use blazor with java backend ? ................. if No then the 2 can not be compared, instead you should be comparing blazor to thymeleaf.

[@GavinLon]

Absolutely! You could certainly code a Blazor frontend that leverages a Java backend. I'm not saying that would be the best stack to use - but you can certainly do that.

[@sonyboy-e5i]

really? sooner or later typescript will control the world 😁

[@GavinLon]

lol - Well TypeScript isn't so bad!

[@elcocodriloazul]

Blazor is the devil. Its like doing asp back in the really old days. Not even Microsoft uses this for obvious reasons XD

[@GavinLon]

Microsoft created the UI for the .NET Aspire dashboard using Blazor and fluent UI. I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion on Blazor.

[@UP-zq1ml]

Blazor uses Web Assembly which is an Open web standard, nothing evil there...

[@riaanfrederickswart]

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. There is even companies out there that switched to blazor for the hybrid as well on a trading platform

[@elcocodriloazul]

@@GavinLon And thats it. Msft transformed their whole documentation web site to mvc5 and core, etc in days. Yet all this remains untouched for years when it comes to updating it to blazor and blazor has been out for 7 years now. The asprite dashboard is tiny when you think about it.

[@elcocodriloazul]

@@riaanfrederickswart What I mean is a serious heavy website with lots of functionality. Not a 5/10 page site. Hybrid is good but on a busy app with lots of functionality you basically have to design the app differently which is fair that this will happen across most languages. So hybrid goes out the window unless its something relatively simple design wise, memory use and space. There are many trading platforms. Some are very simple like etoro so this means nothing really. 75k websites that use blazor is very little for something thats 7 years even with frequent updates. People clearly are resisting it.

[@scott_itall8638]

Laravel for me

[@GavinLon]

I like Laravel :)

[@kolavithonduraski5031]

B4x for me

[@firstlast493]

C# for frontend it's a trash. I prefer to use Javascript for the frontend in Blazor.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your feedback :) C# is great on the frontend. Due to WebAssembly it can run at near native speeds within your browser.

[@LorenzoJimenez]

Long time in IT, moving to .NET stack find a better job

[@GavinLon]

In general there are a lot of great opportunities for .NET developers :) All the best with your change.