Live data from Hacker News

Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

yoyo-code.com

61–70 of 123 posts

Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

#61
post #4

Githubs performance has been rapidly degrading ever since they started rewriting everything in React. It's basically impossible to view diffs now because they often fail to load, render correctly, or just are incredibly slow.

I don't know any of the background but the diff viewer is near unusable past around 5k lines of diff on my M1 Mac.

That’s your first problem right there. A diff of that magnitude is too large periodt.

Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

#63
In web development, frontend product devs are not incentivized to make features fast — the general approach in companies is "ship first, optimize later".

GitHub is one of the few companies where performance is actually commented upon, but in the vast majority of cases stuff just gets slightly slower and nobody cares.

Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

#65
post #10

Because Microsoft bought them.

Right after Microsoft bought them, github got better, and started implementing long-requested features. (The open letter "dear github" or whatever was that was posted right before the takeover.) This is something more recent.

big companies don't do anything fast

it's a car crash in extremely slow motion

Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

#67
post #20

It's also getting a lot flakier. Around October or November of last year I realized that every week I see another bit of SPA jankiness. I lose my scroll position because some component has appeared or disappeared above view. The issues list shows hours-old state and does not refresh. A button doesn't work. A page loads but everything below the header is unstyled. I expand the build details but it collapses closed eve…

Code reviews are a lot less fun (they never were) when your scroll keeps getting snagged

Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

#68

I suffer it and that’s why I’m building https://githero.app Btw, I worked at GitHub for 3 years and they are very aware that slowness is a big issue throughout the whole product. There was a year long cross team effort to improve things but the main goals were not achieved IMO and it shows.

[deleted]

Re: Why is GitHub UI getting slower?

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any of the background but the diff viewer is near unusable past around 5k lines of diff on my M1 Mac.

That’s your first problem right there. A diff of that magnitude is too large periodt.

After all years of advancement in computing, and in the year 2025 it's not possible to show a 5000 lines diff anymore.
Post reply on HN