What I learned by building MY PORTFOLIO without frameworks.

Source: Dev.to

Every project I built started with npx create-react-app. This one didn’t.

Typical starter commands

• npx create-react-app
• npm create vite@latest
• npx create-next-app

Spin up a project, start building. The UI worked, the features worked, but the browser often felt like a black box.

A different approach

Instead of beginning with a framework, I stripped everything back to:

• ✅ index.html
• ❌ No build tools
• ❌ No npm installs
• ❌ No abstraction layers

Just HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript.

What I had to rebuild

Going framework‑free meant handling tasks that are usually hidden:

• Responsive layouts across multiple breakpoints
• Smooth page transitions
• Dark/light theme using CSS variables
• Aurora‑style animations (required more keyframe experiments than I’d like to admit)

It was slower, but it forced me to engage with the fundamentals.

Resulting portfolio

The final product is intentionally simple:

• A clean Bento‑style layout
• A small real‑time clock widget
• Six projects I genuinely enjoyed building

Nothing fancy—just a reminder that the foundations still matter.

If you’re curious what the web looks like without the layers on top, feel free to take a look 👇
(Link in comments)

Tags: #webdevelopment #frontend #javascript #webdev #learninginpublic