Svelte vs React vs Vue: A Comprehensive Analysis!
Svelte, React, and Vue are some of the best front end frameworks and libraries. Each has its own approach and benefits, making the choice a bit challenging for developers.
In this post, we will discuss these frameworks and how they work. After that, we will compare these three in terms of performance, difficulty, scalability, and much more!
Table of content
What is React?
Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook, came up with the idea of React in 2013. He wanted to build a library that can help developers create reusable components. The main reason behind making such building blocks is to help developers build complex user interfaces with minimum possible efforts.
At its heart, React offers a declarative UI and component-centric approach. With its Javascript XML, also known as JSX, developers can merge UI templates with JavaScript logic, crafting a seamless development experience.
What is Vue?
Evan You, a former Google Engineer introduced Vue in 2014. Today, this framework is known as a progressive JavaScript framework which is used for building user interfaces. Its reactive data binding refreshes the view whenever underlying data changes.
Similar to React, even Vue works on component-based architecture where UI elements are modular and reusable. Apart from this, Vue easily integrates with other projects and uses virtual DOM for efficient rendering. With good ecosystem support, Vue provides tools for different web development requirements and appreciates simplicity and flexibility.
What is Svelte?
In November 2016, Rich Harris, a graphic editor of the New York Times created Svelte. It is an advanced JavaScript framework which is categorized amongst the quickest and lightest frameworks. Unlike most frameworks, Svelte doesn’t rely on a virtual DOM. Instead of this, Svelte shifts much work to compile-time and generates highly efficient vanilla JavaScript at build time.
Similar to React and Vue, Svelte is also component-based and promotes a modular code structure that can be reused in the entire application. This means developers write components with readable, concise syntax and the Svelte compiler converts it into small, efficient JavaScript bundles.
We can say that applications built by Svelte are generally faster and leaner compared to the ones that are built on other frameworks. It also supports built-in reactivity. So just in case any data changes occur, it automatically updates parts of the UI.
Svelte vs React vs Vue: Let’s Compare!
#1 - The Basics
- Vue.js: Simple, flexible framework that doesn’t require as much learning as others. No doubt, it’s great for beginners.
- React: One of the most popular and powerful frameworks which is capable of handling complex user interfaces. This would be ideal for those who want to integrate with other tools such as React Native.
- Svelte: One of the most lightweight frameworks, which is considered as performance-oriented due to its small bundle size.
#2 - Performance
- Vue.js: Comes with competitive performance along with fast DOM updates. On top of that, it offers lazy-loading, virtual scrolling, duplicate rendering, and other optimization techniques that can make your work easier.
- React: Thanks to the virtual DOM and an optimized update and render cycle for the DOM tree, it has become a high-performance choice for making seamless and responsive UI.
- Svelte: Superior in performance as it does not contain a runtime library and has efficient ways of handling DOM updates.
#3 - Functionality
- Vue.js: Due to its intuitive and simple API, you can take advantage of two-way data binding, reactive data model, Vue CLI, and many other features.
- React: Best suited for big and complex UIs. Provides utilities like React Router, and the React Redux library.
- Svelte: Focuses on efficient code and doesn't require a runtime library.
#4 - State Management
- Vue.js: Employs a centralized Vuex for state management. Most suitable for cases that come with complicated requirements.
- React: Offers a flexible approach with 3rd party state management libraries such as Redux.
- Svelte: Emphasizes more on state managing, using a simple yet intuitive way.
#5 - Documentation
- Vue.js: Comprehensive, multilingual, and well-organized documentation.
- React: A detailed documentation is available alongside several examples and tutorials.
- Svelte: Even though it’s clear and concise, their community isn’t as big as the Vue and React.
#6 - Support and Community
- Vue.js: An active community with plenty of resources and plugins.
- React: Along with the Facebook-powered community, we get flexible third-party integrations.
- Svelte: Relatively new open-source community with a couple of tutorials and tools coming up.
#7 - Learning Curve
- Vue.js: It’s great for beginners as it doesn’t require a lot of learning.
- React: Might be overwhelming at first with its component-based nature and the introduction of JSX. Once you get the hang of it, it will be easier.
- Svelte: Unorthodox way of doing things without a virtual DOM, less messy syntax though quite different compared to most mainstream frameworks.
#8 - Flexibility & Ecosystem
- Vue.js: Even though tools are well-structured, there’s still more room for flexibility.
- React: Massive community with a plethora of third-party libraries.
- Svelte: The community is still growing, but it’s not as big as React or Vue.
Factors to keep in mind when choosing
One needs to understand that React and Vue are much more mature and are more widely adopted. Offering them as a choice is a safe bet. Adopting Svelte however requires more risk taking attitude as it is much recent framework and less mature. It is often said that no one ever got fired for chosing React over anything else.
Developer experience
Overall React has better tooling and you will be able to hire developers more easily for React and to some extent even for Vue. You may not find anyone easily for Svelte. Also, tooling, code suggestions, generative AI solutions etc. are not as comprehensive as others.
Production Readiness
There is not much difference between production readiness in all three however the bugs in Svelte might come up more frequently and you might have to upgrade to newer versions more rapidly than usual. If you have a fast paced development this should not be a problem.
Developer training
Learning resources however are much better for Svlete and their live documentation is one of the best documentaiton I have ever seen for any front end framework. It is one area where Svelete remains less appreciated but absolutely worth mentioning here.
Which One is Better? React, Vue, or Svelte?
Each framework has its own specialty. React's component philosophy, Vue's progressive nature, and Svelte's simplicity. While it's tough to declare a winner, your project's nature and personal preference will be your best guides.
Keep this in mind: In the world of web development, it's not about choosing the 'best' but selecting the 'right fit'. Happy coding!