Is SPFx abandonware?

[smolattack]

What type of issue is this?

Question

What SharePoint development model, framework, SDK or API is this about?

💥 SharePoint Framework

Target SharePoint environment

SharePoint Online

What browser(s) / client(s) have you tested

• 💥 Internet Explorer
• 💥 Microsoft Edge
• 💥 Google Chrome
• 💥 FireFox
• 💥 Safari
• mobile (iOS/iPadOS)
• mobile (Android)
• not applicable
• other (enter in the "Additional environment details" area below)

Additional environment details

No response

Issue description

The whole of the first page is just issues that haven't even been triaged. Running on old versions of Node, TypeScript and React. Does not work with the latest Graph toolkit.

My clients keep asking me to write SPFx apps for them as they think that the framework is fully supported. I, as a developer, can see that this is abandonware and should not be used for greenfield projects and existing solutions should be transitioned to something else.

Please provide guidance on an official doc page for business users advising them that SPFx is not suitable for production. Alternatively, provide guidance for developers on how to handle:

1. Issues with outdated packages (e.g., use of volta to switch between node version, how to check what version of React or TypeScript your dependencies require, if you have build errors). In your docs, you mention that only Node v18 is supported but no practical guidance on how to switch between versions. It is not explicitly stated that a developer is not able to just update everything themselves. You don't mention anything about old TypeScript or React versions and that they can not be updated and that effort has to be made to seek older versions of your desired dependencies. Even with the proposed update to TS 4.9 that didn't happen, I still wouldn't be able to use TanStack Router.

2. How to explain the embarrassing number of npm/pnpm warnings during the build process. I sometimes have to hand over my code to a client who wants to build the solutions themselves (via CI/CD) and so I'm stuck having to come up with excuses. We need a docs page that gives the right assurances which can just be sent to our clients (SecOps, DevOps, architects, PMs, etc...).

Thank you for reporting this issue. We will be triaging your incoming issue as soon as possible.

[devsheeran]

You and your client can take comfort in this important message from the Microsoft documentation - "You can safely ignore these log warnings & error messages" :/

Seriously though, React 19 is coming out soon and it will do away with unwieldy hooks like useMemo, and we are still on React 17.0.1 (released 2020 October 22 - about 3.5 years ago at time of writing). Will SPFx be updated more frequently and support React 19 anytime in the next year or so (or ever?), or is this basically on life support as per OP title? Thanks

[smolattack]

The whole of React is unwieldy and I'd rather use Solidjs. Unpopular opinion? Sure, but that shouldn't stop me from using it in SPFx (wasn't that the whole point of this framework?).

That important note is good (for a chuckle).

[edelms]

We've used SolidJS in some of our SPFx projects already.
Does not solve the issue of outdated libraries in general, but gives a great performance and DX.

If you want to give it a try, I have written some how-tos (currently for solid and tailwind).
https://edelms.github.io/spfx-x

[lucmoco]

I've been an SPFx developer since 2017, but now I'm encountering more and more problems with the SPFx:

• I cannot use packages that rely on React 18+
• I cannot use packages that rely on Typescript 5+
• We had to build complex workaround in our Azure DevOps pipelines so the critical vulnerabilities of the DevDependencies are not reported

Numerous issues are created in the SPFx team but there are no answers or other follow-up.

The time is coming to consider switching away from SPFx.

[lafe]

@lucmoco You can also add Fluent UI 9 to that list. Fluent UI 9 "merges" the Teams UI Framework and the existing Fluent UI 8 version and is a MAJOR breaking change if you come from Fluent UI 8 (aka major rewrite of all components that use Fluent UI 8). The default for SPFx is still Fluent UI 8, so SPFx encourages you to write new UI components with a UI framework that is, for all intents and purposes, deprecated at this point.

[smolattack]

The time is coming to consider switching away from SPFx.

@lucmoco If this was ever a course of action that a developer could take, I'd have done it years ago. Luckily for Microsoft, technical decisions are made by technically illiterate directors in the real world.

These days I work a lot more with Power*shit products so there is no mode in which Microsoft loses business.

[lucmoco]

SharePoint Framework 2.21 supports Node.js v. 22 and TypeScript 5. This is great new. Thank you SPFx team :-)

[smolattack]

SharePoint Framework 2.21 supports Node.js v. 22 and TypeScript 5. This is great new. Thank you SPFx team :-)

The version of TypeScript they now support is 5.3.3 which was released in 2023. Still an obstacle if you want to use any recently updated open source projects

[lucmoco]

SharePoint Framework 2.21 supports Node.js v. 22 and TypeScript 5. This is great new. Thank you SPFx team :-)

The version of TypeScript they now support is 5.3.3 which was released in 2023. Still an obstacle if you want to use any recently updated open source projects

Sure, but it's already a step forward. For me, it allows me to use the most recent version of some packages that rely on the TS 5 Syntax and would not compile with SPFx 1.20.