Vue 3 Fundamentals vs Complete Intro to React v9

Seven hours covering Vue components, directives, lifecycle hooks, slots, Composition API (ref, reactive, computed, composables), Vue Router, Pinia, and production deployment — a genuinely complete introduction to the modern Vue 3 stack. The workshop was published January 2023, updated for Pinia replacing Vuex, and reviewers note it reflects the current "Vue philosophy" rather than just syntax. Minor gap: TypeScript is not covered (there is a separate Ben Hong course for that), so learners who want TS from day one need to pair it with a second course.

Ben Hong is a Vue.js Core Team member and Senior Staff DX Engineer at Netlify, and his insider knowledge shapes the course throughout. Reviewers consistently praise the "learn, question, apply" workshop structure and his ability to explain the reasoning behind Vue's design choices, not just the mechanics. One blog reviewer wrote that "Ben makes Vue feel intuitive — you won't just learn syntax, you'll understand Vue philosophy." The minority critique is that he moves methodically, which some learners with React backgrounds find slow relative to their existing framework knowledge.

Requires a Frontend Masters subscription (~$39/month or ~$390/year) rather than a one-time purchase. Strong value if you plan to take several Frontend Masters courses (the Vue learning path alone spans fundamentals, intermediate, TypeScript + Vue, Nuxt, and a production-grade Vue course). Weak value if you only want this one course. No free tier — the subscription gates all content.

Students build a real application across the workshop, integrating Vue Router and Pinia into a working project. Reviewers credit it for building "muscle memory" around the Vue ecosystem tools. It is a coherent hands-on build, though it is not the portfolio-heavyweight kind of project (no backend, no auth, no deployment beyond a basic Netlify drop). Learners wanting a production-scale Vue project will need Ben Hong's follow-on "Production-Grade Vue.js" course.

The workshop covers Vite (the modern build tool), Pinia (the current official state management recommendation, replacing Vuex), and Vue Router — the actual stack used in production Vue 3 apps in 2026. Reviewers coming from Vue 2 specifically call out the Options-to-Composition API comparison as immediately applicable for migration work. TypeScript and testing are the two notable gaps relative to a full production workflow.

v9 covers React 18 and 19 features (form actions, Suspense, the React Compiler) plus a modern Vite + TanStack Router + TanStack Query stack. Praised for currency, with a minority of long-term Frontend Masters subscribers flagging that other courses in the catalog can drift.

Brian Holt is the most consistently praised aspect across nine years of Hacker News mentions. Learners use words like 'excellent', 'great', and 'brilliant'. His pet adoption project framing is repeatedly cited as memorable.

Requires a Frontend Masters subscription (currently $39/month), which is consistently described as worth it if you complete more than one course per month. Less competitive against free alternatives if you only want a single React intro.

The single build-along project (an e-commerce app in v9, evolved from the pet adoption app of earlier versions) is praised for being non-trivial and integrating real ecosystem tools (TanStack Query, Vitest) rather than toy examples.

Holt spends real time on tooling (Vite, ESLint, Prettier, code-splitting, Vitest) and modern ecosystem choices, which is the single most-cited reason people say his courses transferred well to their day jobs.