> because it seemed like there was a smooth upgrade path, but there isn't really

You can put a React component into a non-React web page and give it data to render from however you like. Isn't that the intended path?

Yes, and that is indeed what we did. But what happens is you end up with a backend awkwardly fragmented into restframework viewsets and normal Django views. Often you end up having to maintain both. And then your frontend is in two distinct "worlds" which are developed in completely different ways. Unless you finally get to having an SPA and only JSON on the server side you'll feel forever in limbo. HTMX just makes so much more sense for an existing Django project unless you can afford to stop development and go all in on React, and even then only if it's really necessary to have an SPA.

Yeah - agree that the Django path to add REST endpoints alongside HTML ones is not the best. I like Flask for this reason: it walks the line between HTML rendering and JSON responses really well, IMO.

React isn’t all or nothing… you can upgrade bit by bit, extremely incrementally. But if you’re mix and matching frameworks and paradigms together then yes expect to not get the full value.

It’s like judging Django when only using it for its utils package and saying it’s “all or nothing”. Django isn’t really all or nothing either but you won’t get its full value if you just use it to supplement Wordpress for a single endpoint or something.