React often gets blamed when applications feel sluggish.
"We need to migrate."
"We need a new framework."
"React can’t handle scale."
But what if React isn’t the problem?
In this talk, we’ll challenge one of the most common assumptions in frontend engineering: that the framework is responsible for poor performance. Through real-world production patterns and architectural examples, we’ll uncover what actually breaks as applications scale - and why most performance issues stem from our decisions, not React itself.
We’ll explore how over-rendering, global state misuse, network waterfalls, third-party script bloat, and poorly applied SSR strategies quietly degrade performance long before React becomes a bottleneck.
This session is not about micro-optimizing hooks.
It’s about thinking like a frontend architect.
This talk has been presented at React Summit 2026, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.






















