Integrating Phoenix with React Using Inertia for Efficient Development

The article explores the fusion of Phoenix, React, and Inertia to overcome the challenges of traditional server-rendered applications. The author expresses dissatisfaction with popular JavaScript frameworks like Next.js while praising Phoenix’s capabilities, particularly for data visualization and charting. They explain their choice to avoid LiveView, which they found unsuitable for highly interactive apps. Instead, they adopt Inertia to facilitate a modern JavaScript-driven front-end alongside Elixir for the back-end, optimizing the bundle size, and organizing routing effectively. The author appreciates Inertia's protocol approach that allows for smooth transitions and clean integration with their existing Phoenix setup. They discuss authentication challenges, caveats about the Phoenix adapter's reliance on maintainers, and how they tackle common back-end problems while retaining control over the front-end. By sharing personal insights and technical details, the article reveals the author's satisfaction with this development approach, illustrating its potential for balancing clarity and functionality in web applications.