Svelte: Is It Worth the Hype?

Hey everyone,

I've been hearing a lot about Svelte lately. It seems to be gaining a lot of traction, with many developers praising its performance and developer experience. The idea of compiling components to imperative vanilla JavaScript at build time sounds really interesting and potentially revolutionary.

But is it truly as game-changing as the hype suggests? I'm curious to hear from those of you who have used Svelte in production or for significant projects.

What are your honest opinions?

• How does it compare to React, Vue, or Angular in terms of learning curve?
• What are its biggest advantages and disadvantages?
• Have you encountered any significant limitations or challenges?
• Would you recommend it for new projects or migrating existing ones?

Let's discuss!

I've been using Svelte for a couple of side projects and a small internal tool. I have to say, the hype is largely justified!

Learning Curve: For me, it was significantly easier to pick up than React hooks or Vue's Composition API. The syntax is very clean and intuitive, feeling much closer to plain HTML, CSS, and JS.

Advantages:

• Performance: No virtual DOM means faster initial renders and updates. Bundle sizes are also typically smaller.
• Developer Experience: Scoped CSS, built-in state management (stores), and reactivity are incredibly seamless. The compiler does a lot of heavy lifting.
• Simplicity: Less boilerplate code compared to other frameworks.

Disadvantages:

• Ecosystem Maturity: While growing rapidly, the ecosystem (third-party libraries, tooling) isn't as vast as React or Vue. Finding niche solutions might take more effort.
• Tooling: Debugging can sometimes be a bit different since it compiles away a lot.
• Hiring: It might be harder to find developers with extensive Svelte experience compared to React.

Overall, for projects where performance and a smooth DX are priorities, Svelte is an excellent choice. I'm seriously considering it for my next major project.

I've been a long-time Vue developer and have experimented with Svelte quite a bit. It's definitely impressive, but I think "hype" is the right word for some of the claims.

The compile-time approach is brilliant for performance and bundle size, that's undeniable. The reactivity system feels very natural. However, I personally still find Vue's Options API and its progressive adoption model very comfortable. The ecosystem around Vue is incredibly robust, and there are readily available solutions for almost anything you need.

For a brand new project where I want to optimize for size and speed above all else, I might lean towards Svelte. But for most of my ongoing projects, the existing Vue ecosystem and familiarity outweigh the marginal performance gains Svelte might offer, especially considering the smaller pool of Svelte experts.

It's a fantastic tool, and I encourage people to try it, but let's not forget the strengths of its more established peers.