TanStack Start vs Nuxt: One Framework to rule them all?

I love Nuxt and I really like TanStack Start. But which one is better? Or are they about the same? And if they are about the same, does it do anything my Nuxt setup can't, and is that worth leaving Vue for React? So I decided to build the same app in both frameworks and take a look. Read on below to find out! If you'd rather watch a video, check out the video on the same topic! The app In both frameworks I built a small GitHub user lookup app. You type a username, the profile gets fetched on the server, and the username lands in the URL as a ?user= query param so the result is shareable. Type ErikCH , hit enter, and the card renders. Refresh the page and it's still there. It has the same behaviour so the difference lies in the code. Difference one: server functions vs server routes On the Nuxt side we call a server route from useAsyncData . Server are the more idiomatic way to use Nuxt to call things on the server. <!-- app/pages/index.vue --> < script setup lang= "ts" > import { z } from ' zod ' import type { GithubUser } from ' ~~/server/api/github.get ' definePageMeta ({ props : route => z . object ({ user : z . string (). default ( '' ) }). parse ( route . query ), }) const props = defineProps < { user : string } > () const router = useRouter () const input = ref ( props . user ) const { data , error } = await useAsyncData ( ' github-user ' , () => props . user ? $fetch < GithubUser > ( ' /api/github ' , { query : { user : props . user } }) : Promise . resolve ( null ), { watch : [() => props . user ] }, ) function lookup () { router . push ({ query : { user : input . value . trim () } }) } </ script > The props option on definePageMeta maps the query into a typed page prop and re-runs on client navigation. useAsyncData fetches when there's a username and refetches whenever it changes. The conditional that returns Promise.resolve(null) skips the request on an empty query param, (or when you first load). The server route does the outbound call: // server/api/gith