DEV Community

Krishna Sharma
Krishna Sharma

Posted on

Svelte vs React, Comparison & Analysis.

As we know that React is the most popular choice among the Frontend Developers, as the JavaScript programming language is growing, a number of new Frameworks and Libraries have been introduced in recent years to grab attention of the frontend developers and one of them is Svelte.
Svelte is a frontend development framework which has a number of features for web development similar to React and here we're going to compare it with React to know the differences and what are the Pros and Cons of using it over React.

Learning Curve:

Learning React can be challenging for the developers who are new to the component based architecture using JSX as it has its own concepts of state management, props and lifecycle methods within the component. Svelte on the other hand has a straightforward learning curve as its syntax is very similar to HTML, CSS & JavaScript.

REACT:-

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import SomeComponent from 'some/where/else';
const MyComponent = (props) => {
const [state, setState] = useState({
/* ...some state */
})
useEffect(() => {
// Handle some side effect or lifecycle.
}, [])
return <SomeComponent {...props}>Hello World</SomeComponent>;
}
export default MyComponent
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode




Svelte:-


<script>
let count = 0;
const increment = () => {
count += 1;
}
</script>
<div>
<h1>Count is {count}</h1>
<button on:click={increment}>Increment</button>
</div>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode




Performance:

React has virtual DOM that allows it to efficiently update and render the Ui components by calculating minimum changes needed to the real DOM. Although the virtual DOM is fast and suitable for most of the applications, the virtual DOM has its own performance drawbacks on very large sized applications to compare the real DOM with the virtual DOM.
Svelte's compilation process generates highly optimised JavaScript code during the build time which results in faster initial load times and better performance.

Bundle Size:

As the React relies on virtual DOM, the final bundle size can be larger compared to Svelte as Svelte delivers JavaScript code inside the bundle files without any unnecessary code whereas React delivers state management, routing and other functionalities code with the bundle. Svelte does not require any additional libraries for state management as it natively supports it through its reactive assignments to the variables.

Code Readability:

React's JSX syntax is good for experienced developers but sometimes it leads to a cluttered appearance within the code especially for large and complex components. This makes the component logic hard to understand for developers when they first go through the codebase. Svelte's syntax has similar overview to regular HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which makes it more readable and easy to understand even for those developers who are not familiar with this Framework.

Third-party Support:

As React was introduced over a decade ago, it has become very mature and adopted by most of the developers around the world so now you may find support for almost any issue, feature or library to be implemented within your app. Svelte was introduced recently, although its still improving but you may have to struggle if you are stuck at some issue or want to implement some feature or a library in your app.

Conclusion:

Both React and Svelte have their own strengths and weaknesses and choosing between them depends on your project requirements, developer team's expertise and performance considerations. React is still a solid choice for complex and large applications but on the other hand, Svelte's simplicity, smaller bundle size and better performance make it an appealing option for smaller projects which are focused on speed and efficiency.

Top comments (0)