Every major framework release ships a long changelog, but only a handful of changes affect day-to-day work. Here is the practical view of what is worth your attention.
Caching gets predictable
The biggest quality-of-life improvement is a clearer caching model. Fetches are no longer cached by default in ways that surprise you, which removes a whole class of “why is my data stale” bugs.
Faster local development
Cold starts and recompiles are noticeably quicker, which matters more than any single feature when you spend all day in the dev server.
// Opt into caching explicitly when you want itnconst data = await fetch(url, { cache: "force-cache" });
Upgrade when you have time to test your data-fetching layer, not in a rush before a deadline. The migration is smooth, but the caching changes deserve a careful read.