Developer tools
React 19.3
View Transitions finally became a component.
- Score
- 4.0
- Status
- Still using
- Reviewed
What I tested
A production app upgraded to 19.3, with View Transitions added at three boundaries: the route Suspense boundary, list-to-detail navigation, and a modal.
What worked
- Wrapping a subtree in ViewTransition is the first animation primitive in React that does not make you own the mechanics of every transition.
- Restricting animation to transition-marked updates means an urgent keystroke never animates. That constraint is a feature, not a limitation.
- Fragment Refs remove the container div you added only to measure something.
What did not
- The mental model takes a moment: you spend the first hour asking why nothing animates, and the answer is always that the update was not deferrable.
- Reduced motion still has to be handled by you. An animation library that ignores the OS setting is a bug.
Verdict
Worth upgrading for if you are already on 19.x. Not a reason to migrate from 18 on its own; do that for Server Components and take this as a bonus.