- Switch to document.createElement for initial rendering, removing data‑reactid, extra <span> wrappers and rendering null as comment nodes – improves performance and changes DOM output.
- Breaking changes include removal of deprecated top‑level APIs (findDOMNode, render, etc.), component instance methods, addons and CommonJS entry point; React.cloneElement now resolves defaultProps and ReactPerf API is now opaque.
- Adds full SVG tag/attribute support, allows functional components to return null, and includes numerous bug fixes (memory leaks, IE input handling, CSS property handling, event support) with many new warnings.