Ask HN: Did GitHub UI become unbearably slow?

9 zaphodias 7 5/12/2025, 10:03:17 AM

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 (7)

bob1029 · 6h 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).

bigbassroller · 1h ago

Did you add node_modules to your repo by chance?

frou_dh · 3h 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.

jsheard · 7h 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 · 6h ago

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

genezeta · 7h 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.

efortis · 6h ago

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