Reinventing Web Development with Brisa: A Conversation with Aral Roca - JSJ 677

JavaScript Jabber

In this week’s episode, it’s just me — Charles Max Wood — and I’m joined by the incredibly sharp and open-source-loving Aral Roca, direct from Barcelona! Aral’s the creator of Brisa, a new full-stack web framework that flips the script on how we build modern web apps. If you thought the "another day, another framework" meme was played out... well, Brisa might just change your mind.
Key Takeaways:
-Brisa’s Big Idea: It's designed to let you build web apps with minimal or zero JavaScript on the client side. Think HTML streaming, server actions, and components that render server-side first, but can gradually hydrate on the client.
-Server-first FTW: Aral walks us through how Brisa handles server actions — even capturing click and scroll events on the server — using ideas inspired by HTMX, LiveView, and server components from frameworks like Next.js.
-Tiny and Mighty: The whole framework is incredibly lightweight. Web components come in at just ~3 KB, and the built-in i18n system is under 1 KB!
-From Idea to Reality: Aral started Brisa to scratch his own itch — building side projects and blogs without bloated front-end code. But now, others are using it too (yes, even in production!), including one travel agency that's gone all-in.
-Multi-platform Future: Brisa has adapters in the works for Vercel, Node, and Deno — plus integration with Tauri for building native Android, iOS, and desktop apps from the same codebase.
-What's Coming: Roadmap goals include improved hot reloads, more adapters, transitions, lazy-loaded components, and a better playground for developers to tinker with.
Oh, and yes — Aral does parkour. For real.
This episode is packed with deep technical insight and exciting potential for a new way to build web apps — especially for devs who love fast performance, server-rendering, and clean architecture.
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