Rust+WASM+WebGL vs React+Three.js: When Going Framework-Free Actually Makes Sense

A Reddit post caught my eye this week — someone built a real-time flight tracker using Rust, WebAssembly, and raw WebGL. No React. No Three.js. No frameworks at all. My first reaction was "why would you do that to yourself?" My second reaction, after looking at the results, was "okay, I get it now." I've shipped projects on both sides of this fence. I've built 3D visualizations with Three.js and React Three Fiber, and I've also gone down the rabbit hole of writing raw WebGL shaders. Let me walk