Svelte Vs React: which is the better choice?

Developers are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve their workflow. While the "perfect" library or framework might not really exist, the goal is always to choose tools that maximize efficiency. These tools can make a significant difference in project development, although factors like company policy can sometimes limit the available options.

But, let’s say that there’s an ideal world where a computer specialist is allowed to choose whatever they want. Practically anything that fits their skills the best. In this article, we’ll try to explain the difference between Svelte vs React — as these two are quite popular choices among developers across the globe.

What is Svelte?

Svelte is an open-source modern web framework that has gained quite significant traction among developers for building web applications over the past couple of years. It was developed by Rich Harris in 2016, a person responsible for creating Ractive.js back in 2013.

Svelte’s key features

The three main features that you might already be familiar with, but that we think are still worth mentioning, are:

• Less code: Svelte prioritizes writing minimal code. The use of TypeScript, which is a superset of JavaScript, significantly reduces code size.
• No Virtual DOM: This means that, unlike React, Svelte manages to eliminate the need for a virtual DOM which ultimately leads to both a lighter runtime footprint and potentially faster performance.
• Bundle size: Compared to React, Svelte has a much smaller bundle size. What this means is that when creating a website, Svelte’s output will be way lower compared to React’s output. This ultimately leads to a more efficient, but less complex website. Naturally, a website with a smaller size will load much faster than a website that takes much more space.

Svelte’s main benefits and challenges

Benefits:

• Smaller bundle sizes and faster performance.
• Improved developer experience, with a focus on reactivity.
• Simpler development experience with less code.

Challenges:

• Smaller community compared to React.
• Less established tooling ecosystem — though rapidly growing.
• The learning curve can differ based on prior experience with other frameworks.

It’s also useful to note that while Svelte has a large potential for smaller bundle sizes and faster performance, this advantage might not hold for very large applications.

What is React?

On the other hand, React is a more established open-source JavaScript library. React was created by Facebook and is widely used for building dynamic user interfaces (UIs) for web applications.

React, as a library, enforces a more declarative programming style. It allows developers to describe the desired UI state while React then efficiently handles the updates.

React’s key features:

Let’s go over the three key features that React as a library offers, that might tip the scales in its favor when choosing a development framework.

• Virtual DOM: Compared to Svelte, React utilizes a virtual DOM. Virtual DOM is a lightweight in-memory representation of the actual DOM. This allows React to efficiently compare changes and update only the necessary parts of the real DOM, and it ultimately leads to a smoother performance for complex applications. 
• JSX: A feature that we personally find quite useful, JSX, or JavaScript Syntax Extension, is a popular syntax extension for React that allows writing HTML-like structures within JavaScript code. This makes the creation of UI components more simple.
• Unidirectional Data Flow: React enforces a unidirectional data flow, ensuring predictable and maintainable state management within components.

It’s also worth mentioning that React leverages a component-based architecture. This all leads to code reusability, maintainability, and modularity in web development, which is more than just convenient in our opinion.

React’s main benefits and challenges

While React and Svelte have some similarities, there are still many differences to consider when making your choice. 

Let’s see what React brings to the table in the React vs Svelte battle.

Benefits:

• React has a large and active community with extensive support.
• It is a mature and versatile ecosystem with a wide range of tools and libraries.
• As a whole, React offers excellent performance, especially for complex and large-scale applications.
• It has a declarative programming style for cleaner and more maintainable code.

Challenges:

Of course, there are a few hurdles along the way if you want to master React.

• There’s a slightly steeper learning curve compared to other libraries due to its virtual DOM and JSX syntax. Both aspects are, of course, mentioned as benefits. But, as useful as they are, they still make React slightly harder to grasp at the start.
• The fact that there both virtual DOM and potential third-party libraries are present, it’s quite normal to expect larger bundle sizes.
• Compared to some other, simpler libraries, React can involve more boilerplate code.

Another important thing to note here is that React offers robust built-in state management solutions using hooks like useState and useReducer. While we didn’t mention this as a part of key features, it’s still useful to know that these are also somewhat vital aspects of React development.

Which one should you choose?

A simple answer would be that choosing between Svelte and React depends on your project's specific needs and priorities. A more complex one would be a list of key features. Let’s take a quick look at a head-to-head comparison of Svelte vs React.

By now, you probably already know which one to choose, but if you’re still in a dilemma, here’s a summary.

Consider Svelte if:

• Your project prioritizes speed and small bundle sizes.
• You value a simpler development experience with less code.
• You're building a smaller or medium-sized application.

Consider React if:

• You need a well-established library with a large community and extensive resources.
• You're building a complex or large-scale application.
• You prefer a more mature ecosystem with various tools and libraries.

Making the right choice with Tapptitude

Tapptitude is a leading mobile app development agency with a team of passionate developers skilled in both Svelte and React. Here's how we can help you choose between these two in a direct Svelte vs React performance clash:

• Needs Assessment — We'll work closely with you to understand not only your project's goals, but also your target audience. Performance requirements and team expertise are, of course, quite important aspects as well.
• Long-term Vision — The initial development by itself isn’t enough. The idea is to also focus on the long-term maintainability and scalability of your application. Don’t overthink it — we'll advise on which framework and library align best with your future plans.
• Development Expertise — Our team has plenty of experience building high-performing applications. Both with Svelte and React. We can use this expertise to deliver the results you want, regardless of your chosen framework and library.

FAQs

What's the real difference between React vs Svelte?

The core difference lies in how they update the DOM. As we mentioned a couple of times in the article, Svelte compiles code into optimized JavaScript. It’s the optimized JavaScript that directly manipulates the DOM. On the other hand, React uses a virtual DOM for intermediary comparisons before updating the real DOM. 

This can lead to potential performance advantages and smaller bundle sizes for Svelte, especially in simpler applications.

Why is React more popular than Svelte?

A short and simple answer would be that React has been around longer. It has established a vast community, extensive resources, and a mature ecosystem of tools. On the other hand, Svelte is a newer framework but is rapidly gaining traction due to its developer-friendly approach which is a huge bonus for beginners and those who don’t really have that much time to commit to something more complex. One thing is certain — the Svelte vs React performance battle is quite a close one.

Who uses Svelte?

For example, several companies, including The New York Times, Spotify, and Kickstarter, have adopted Svelte for their web applications. The framework's popularity is growing and it attracts developers who value its speed and simplicity.