Moving Railway's Frontend Off Next.js
Summary
Railway migrated its frontend from Next.js to a Vite + TanStack Start stack, reducing builds from over 10 minutes to under two and enabling zero-downtime deployments through two PRs. The move involved removing Next.js dependencies, using Nitro as the server layer, and leaning into a client-first architecture with explicit routing, while sacrificing built-in image optimization and some ecosystem tools. The result is faster iteration, edge caching via Fastly, and a deployment process that mirrors how Railway serves its users.