Webpack is incredibly complicated and the way this project starts with a fat package.json was a turn-off.

As of 2024, a leaner and more scalable alternative is Vite. See this article for a mode modern approach to building Chrome extensions with TypeScript - https://medium.com/@5tigerjelly/creating-a-chrome-extension-with-react-and-vite-boilerplate-provided-db3d14473bf6