react-router: Why the preference for browserHistory over hashHistory?
<p>I'm relatively new to React; apologies if this is a really naive question.</p>

<p>What are the <em>technical</em> advantages to <code>browserHistory</code> that make it preferable over <code>hashHistory</code>? For example, is there a major performance/efficiency boost from it using the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History" rel="noreferrer">History API</a>?</p>

<p>The docs state that <code>browserHistory</code> is <a href="https://github.com/rackt/react-router/blob/master/docs/guides/basics/Histories.md#browserhistory" rel="noreferrer">recommended</a>, even though this comes at the cost of the <a href="https://github.com/rackt/react-router/blob/master/docs/guides/basics/Histories.md#configuring-your-server" rel="noreferrer">additional server config</a> and needing to hard-code or configure your base URL for different servers via <a href="https://github.com/rackt/react-router/issues/353#issuecomment-147698452" rel="noreferrer">basename</a>.</p>

<p><code>hashHistory</code> "just works", however, regardless of the base URL from which the files are served. No server config needed. Bundle your app, host it from any URL/path on a server, good to go.</p>

<p>It might be good if the docs went a bit further in explaining <em>why</em> it <code>browserHistory</code> is recommended even though it involves more complexity.</p>