Hotwire vs Next.js in 2026: Is Server-Centric HTML the End of SPA Bloat? [Compared]

The median mobile webpage ships over 460 KB of JavaScript, according to the HTTP Archive's Web Almanac . That was 2022. It's gotten worse. Meanwhile, David Heinemeier Hansson, Creator of Ruby on Rails and CTO at 37signals, has been waging a very public war against SPA-by-default architecture, championing Hotwire as the antidote. Bold claim. But when you actually compare Hotwire vs Next.js on real metrics — payload size, time to interactive, developer complexity — who wins? I've spent 14 years building web applications across both paradigms. Server-rendered monoliths, React SPAs, hybrid architectures. I have opinions. But opinions aren't benchmarks. So I built the same small CRUD application in both stacks and measured what actually matters. The answer isn't as clean as either camp wants it to be. What Is Hotwire, and Why Is It Suddenly Everywhere? Hotwire is an umbrella term for three technologies developed by 37signals: Turbo (intercepts link clicks and form submissions to swap HTML f