Ask HN: Did GitHub UI become unbearably slow?

14•zaphodias•8mo ago

I remember being able to review even large PRs (70-100 files changed) from the web UI fairly easily, but now every time I click a button, the page becomes unresponsive for many seconds.

For what it's worth (excluding client-side issues), I have a high-speed internet connection and a last-gen CPU.

Things that are very slow (from 5 to 60 seconds depending on the number of items) for me:

- Clicking on "Pull requests" tab for any repo

- Opening a PR with many comments (50+)

- Opening "Files changed" tab from inside any PR

- Marking a file as "viewed" from the "Files changed" tab

Tips I found to mitigate this:

- Opening the link in a new tab often usually only takes half the time than navigating in your current page.

- Review PRs from the visual studio code web ui (github.dev), easily accessible by pressing "." while viewing a PR

Comments

jsheard•8mo ago

Possibly related to them just adding stricter rate limits, because AI scrapers won't stop pissing in the pool?

https://github.blog/changelog/2025-05-08-updated-rate-limits...

zaphodias•8mo ago

Just to be clear, I am authenticated. Maybe they are struggling with the AI scrapers though, you're right.

genezeta•8mo ago

Earlier this morning they "temporarily rate banned" me after clicking a total of 3 files in some repository.

May be related, or maybe not.

bob1029•8mo ago

GitHub used to be server-side rendered. This is the consequence of drinking the client side framework koolaid.

One could argue about how react makes it easier for big orgs to work together or whatever. But, when the whole point of the product is to be a robust productivity tool for developers and they can't do basic tasks without getting frustrated, it doesn't matter. The entire product could become irrelevant if someone exploits this weakness. Speed is a killer feature in a market where few understand how to actually provide it (or have the courage to preserve it).

e-topy•7mo ago

This is why I like SourceHut. It's fast, lean, js-free, shows only what's important on screen.

The only downside is that I now need to juggle between two git servers that don't make mirroring easy. But if (when) Microsoft decides to do something stupid, I at least have an escape hatch.

efortis•8mo ago

I like IntelliJ’s Github plugin for reviewing PRs. It’s nice for adding bookmarks and code folding.

frou_dh•8mo ago

Yes, when navigating a repo's files on an older computer, I noticed that it took an incredible length of time to rehydrate pages or whatever it's doing.

bigbassroller•8mo ago

Did you add node_modules to your repo by chance?

pbkompasz•8mo ago

A lot of big websites, e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, GitHub, have become really bad and sometimes unusable in the past year or two. I think it's mainly due to using unnecessarily complex frontend frameworks and the low quality of code generated by LLMs. It's a vibe.

dapperdrake•7mo ago

At first it was only too slow on mobile.

39C3 – Asahi Linux – Porting Linux to Apple Silicon – Sven Peter

Rare first Superman comic once stolen from Nicolas Cage sells for $15M

Observability with ClickHouse (2023)

Visualising RAG

Show HN: I built a DLL to stop Excel/Word from spawning PowerShell shells

Linus Torvalds Uses Google Antigravity

Accessibility Concerns Over Bakerl0.0 Line Advertiser's Rebrand

AgentRoam: Watch GPT-5.2 control movement, camera and selfies in Watch Dogs 2

Neon (serverless Postgres) transitions away from open source

Defrosting using low-energy surface heating

Show HN: Stillmail. minimalist email app for friends

Techrastination

Common misunderstandings about large software companies

An explanation of performance degradation through false sharing [video]

Are There Any Similar Sites Like Downdetector?

The First 'Apple Silicon': The Aquarius Processor Project

Show HN: Makers.page – A link-in-bio for founders with a "slot leasing" protocol

When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth

xByte, the Pay-per-Byte content-agnostic infra

Asimpy: Simple discrete event simulation framework in Python using async/await

This is the future: A Software Library with No Code

Comma – Show the world who you are in just 5 minutes

Show HN: Night Core – A WASM execution firewall for AI agents and untrusted code

Cisco switches hit by reboot loops due to DNS client bug

From Word to Border

An Open Letter to Bigot Diners (2013)

Ask HN: Would you pay for a privacy-first social platform?

Ask HN: How do you pick side projects?

Why overdose deaths are falling in America

MSBuildStructuredLog: A Logger for MSBuild