React vs. Svelte: A Quick Comparison of Frontend Technologies

As a web developer, choosing the right frontend framework can significantly impact the efficiency, speed and performance of your projects. While React is pretty popular, Svelte is a close alternative. In this article, I’ll compare Svelte and React, and highlight their key differences and benefits

Svelte, Which is made by Rich Harris, is a new frontend framework that shifts much of the work to compile time which results in highly optimized vanillaJS at runtime, eliminating the need for a virtual DOM unlike React and reducing the bundle size at the end.
React, developed by Facebook, is a popular library for building user interfaces, and applications. It uses a virtual DOM to efficiently update the UI in response to state changes.

Key Differences between Svelte and React:

• Virtual DOM Usage: React uses virtual DOM for updating changes in the app while Svelte does not use virtual DOM
• JSX Syntax: React uses JSX which is a combination of JavaScript and XML/HTML while Svelte doesn't use JSX

Comparisons of Svelte & React:
1, Performance:

• Svelte: Directly updating the DOM lead to faster runtime performance and smaller bundle sizes.
• React: Virtual DOM provides efficient UI updates but also results in larger bundle sizes.

2, Learning Curve:

• Svelte: Easier to learn with straightforward reactive assignments and simple state management.
• React: harder learning curve due to JSX and the virtual DOM concept.

3, Use Cases:

• Svelte: when making high-performance applications where bundle size and runtime speed are critical.
• React: when making complex applications with extensive state management needs and a robust component structure.

Who wins? : It depends on your project! React for experience and support due to large community, or choose Svelte for speed and ease of use.

My Expectations for HNG Internship with React
I look forward to gaining knowledge and experience from colleagues and coordinators, mastering React powerful features and best practices in the HNG Internship. I’m also very excited to work on real-world projects, collaborate and work with other developers, and deepen my understanding of Frontend development.

For more information about the HNG Internship, visit the HNG Internship homepage and explore HNG Premium services.

This article is written and published by Olanrewaju Olajide