Waku, a minimal React framework has released version 1.0 alpha, marking its public API surface area as stable as the project shifts focus towards bug fixes and compatibility improvements.
Waku 1.0 alpha represents a significant milestone for the lightweight framework, which has been in development for nearly three years. The release stabilises the framework’s public APIs and signals a transition from feature development to refinement and stability. The team has committed to providing release notes with each version and migration guides when needed as they work towards version 1.0 beta and release candidate stages.
One of the key strengths highlighted in this release is Waku’s sweet spot for mostly-static sites with some dynamic routes, including marketing sites, blogs, documentation sites, and light ecommerce applications. The framework’s simple per-route configuration makes it straightforward to choose between fully static or fully dynamic rendering, or even blend the two approaches with layouts, slices, and pages each having their own rendering configuration.
The 1.0 alpha release introduces a breaking change vs earlier releases, that affects users implementing config-based routing or deployment adapters. Entry files have been renamed from server-entry.ts and client-entry.ts to waku.server.ts and waku.client.ts respectively. Developers upgrading from earlier versions will need to rename these files accordingly. There is no migration guide for the release, but there is an earlier community-created migration guide provides detailed upgrade instructions for users moving from version 0.25 to 0.27.
Waku positions itself as an alternative to heavier frameworks like Next.js, particularly for developers building smaller projects who want to work directly with React Server Components without the complexity of enterprise-grade features. The framework is built on top of Vite and Hono, prioritising developer experience whilst supporting all the latest React 19 features including server components and server actions. A comparison article on LogRocket notes that whilst Next.js offers extensive features for complex applications, Waku’s minimalist approach makes it ideal for projects that don’t require the full weight of a comprehensive framework.
The release has generated interest in the React community. On Reddit, some users noted the announcement’s brevity, with Waku creator Daishi Kato acknowledging feedback after one user asked for an explanation of what the framework purpose is:
No explanation of what it is or why we should be curious?
Waku creator’s responded:
Good point. It doesn’t even mention it’s a React framework…
Hope https://waku.gg/#introduction helps, but I’m not sure if it’s enough for people to be curious. If I were to put some words to make it interesting, it’d be:
- It’s a React framework developed for React Server Components from day one.
- It’s based on Vite and Hono.
- Its API is small and easy to learn.
- The dev server and build process are very fast, mostly thanks to Vite.
The announcement was also featured in the Bytes newsletter, and in Netlify’s 2025 web frameworks review, which noted Waku’s move to alpha as part of the broader maturation of React Server Components across the ecosystem.
There are some architectural considerations developers should be aware of. Waku is explicitly designed for non-production projects during this alpha phase, with the team actively seeking feedback through their GitHub discussions. The framework currently lacks some features that developers might expect from mature frameworks, such as built-in caching layers, though it supports deployment to multiple platforms including Cloudflare and AWS Lambda.
Waku is an open-source project developed primarily by Daishi Kato, known for creating popular React state management libraries Zustand, Jotai, and Valtio. The framework’s name, meaning ‘to excite’ in Japanese, reflects its goal of providing an exciting and enjoyable developer experience whilst remaining lightweight and focused on React Server Components fundamentals.
