WeWeb · React · Low-Code · Frontend
WeWeb or React: Which One Should You Start With?
I built the same app’s frontend in WeWeb first, then in React. If you’ve never coded, I’d start with WeWeb. If you already know some code, go with React.
Never written code?
WeWebAlready know some code?
React + TypeScriptI get this question a lot, so I’ll answer it from what I actually did.
On the recruitment ATS/CRM I worked on, the frontend was first built in WeWeb. Later we rebuilt the whole frontend in React 19 + TypeScript, and most of that work was done with Claude Code. So I’ve used both on the same product, with real users.
My answer is simple: if you’ve never coded before, start with WeWeb. If you already have some notions of code, start with React.
Why WeWeb if you’ve never coded
WeWeb is easy to pick up. You put elements on a page, connect them to your data, and add workflows that run when someone clicks a button or submits a form.
What I like is that it teaches you how a frontend works while you build:
What you pick up in WeWeb
- how a page fetches data from an API
- where that data is kept while the page is open
- workflows: when this happens, do this, then that
- variables and conditions
- what to do when a request fails
You do the same things in React later. In WeWeb you just do them visually first.
It’s also a good option if you don’t want to vibe-code everything with AI. You build each part yourself, so you understand what you made. (I wrote more about that in low-code or vibe coding.)
Why React is easier to get into now
A few years ago React was harder to start with. You had to set up the project, learn the tooling and write everything by hand before anything worked.
With Claude Code that’s different. You describe the page, it writes the components, and you review and fix what it wrote. You can build a lot more in a lot less time.
That’s how we did our migration. We added React pages one by one while the WeWeb app was still running, until React was the whole frontend. We used TanStack Query, React Hook Form, Zod and React Router.
- WeWeb app in production
- React pages added one by one
- Both running during the migration
- React becomes the whole frontend
For a big app that keeps growing, I’d pick React today because you have full control over the code. (More on my React work.)
React is harder to debug
In WeWeb, when something breaks, you open the workflow and check each step. You can see what the API returned and which variable is empty.
In React the problem can be in a component, a hook, the state, the cache, a request or a type. You check the console and the network tab, and follow the data through several files.
If AI wrote a big part of the code, a beginner will have a hard time here, because you’re debugging code you didn’t write and don’t fully understand yet. That’s where I see most people get stuck.
WeWeb
- you see each workflow step
- you see what the API returned
- fewer places for a bug to hide
- less freedom when the app gets big
React
- full control over the code
- AI writes it much faster
- bugs can be spread across files
- you need to read code to fix it
Which one to start with
Start with WeWeb if
- you’ve never written code
- you want to see how data and workflows work
- you want to build something real soon
- you don’t want AI doing everything for you
Start with React if
- you already know some code, even a little
- you studied programming or tried it before
- you want to learn the details
- you plan to build bigger apps
Starting with WeWeb doesn’t lock you in. When you move to React later, you’ll already know how data is fetched, what state is and how a workflow runs, so it’s mostly about learning to write it as code.
If you already know some code, I wouldn’t spend months in a visual tool. Go to React, use AI to go faster, and read what it writes.
For a large frontend I’d use React today. But WeWeb got us far quickly, and I’d still recommend it to someone who has never coded. (For the bigger picture, see low-code vs full-code.)