Long-term vision for microfrontend and modern UI composition

[jeffreyschultz]

Hi NueJS team!

First off, I want to say how impressed I am with the philosophy and execution of NueJS. The standards-first, lightweight, and separation-of-concerns approach feels incredibly fresh in today's Javascript ecosystem, especially when so much complexity is the norm.

I want to start a discussion about long-term architectural goals, specifically around:

Microfrontends and modern UI composition

Many large-scale web applications are moving towards microfrontend architectures—where independent teams deliver discrete, self-contained frontend features that integrate into a larger shell. This trend is driven by the need for:

• Indepdent team autonomy and deployment
• Scalability in both codebases and organization structure
• Progressive migration (modernizing parts of legacy systems incrementally)
• Technology-agnostic integration (sometimes even across frameworks)

Given NueJS's philosphy, I'm curious:

1. Do you have any long-term plans or thoughts around supporting microfrontend archictures or similar approaches like federated modules, web components, or dynamic imports?

2. What's your perspective on composition strategies for large-scale apps in NueJS?

Some frameworks offer:

• Module federation (e.g., Webpack 5)
• Single-SPA-style orchestration
• Native Web Components integration
• Service-driven UI with JSON/HTML payloads

How might NueJS approach these ideas while staying minimal and standards-aligned?

3. Could NueJS evolve into a "meta-framework" that helps orchestrate multiple independent Nue apps, or integrate non-Nue apps (e.g., legacy React or Vue widgets)?

Example Use Cases

• A dashboard app where the team management, analytics, and notifications sections are built as independent Nue apps and deployed separately, then composed into a single shell.
• An e-commerce site where the checkout flow, product listing, and recommendations are maintained by separate teams, potentially even mixing NueJS with existing framework.
• A SaaS platform where customers can embed a NueJS widget into their own pages, like a chat bubble or analytics panel.

Considerations

• Will NueJS provide primitives or guidance for:
  • Runtime integration of separately built apps?
  • Shared state, events, or routing across boundaries?
  • Avoiding duplicated resources (e.g., CSS, polyfills) across microfrontends?
• Could NueJS offer special tooling or conventions to make microfrontend use cases "just work" without adding complexity?

Given NueJS's focus on simplicity, standards, and performance, you're uniquely positioned to rethink microfrontend patterns in a way that avoids the pitfalls of existing heavyweight solutions. It's an exciting space, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

• What's on your radar?
• What do you think is overhyped?
• Are there "Nue-native" approaches that could be explored?

Thank you for all your work on NueJS—it's a beautiful contribution to the web development landscape. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

[jeffreyschultz]

@tipiirai Bumping to get this on your radar. :)

[tipiirai]

Hey Jeff,

First: sorry for the super late answer. I tend to bury myself in my coding chamber between releases and not talk to people meanwhile.
I'm happy to hear you like the approach. Surprisingly few opt for standards, simplicity and minimalism these days, which I feel should always be the goal.
I feel the biggest pieces in a web project are the following:

1. The marketing/documentation website (MPA)
2. The single-page application (SPA)
3. SVG graphs, images, and videos (Visuals)

All of these have a different development approach and need different interests and skillsets. These high-level entities are not necessarily "microfrontends", but that's the big division Nue attempts to optimize and make development easier for each party. Even for the visuals part, which can be merged together with the other two and all backed with a shared design system.

The general development model can be thought of as "architectural" rather than component-based. There are modules, for sure, but a software architecture has many other elements in play like the overall structure and the design system.

I feel the turning point of Nue are the upcoming templates, which will make things much easier than what they are now. Essentially everything you need: MPA, SPA, and the Visuals, shared design system, MVC architecture (with router), and a backend server/database integration.

So the goal of Nue is definitely to be a "meta-framework" where the common use cases "just work". Likely a system you are looking for.