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Which front-end framework is the most performant and lightweight?

In the world of frontend development, choosing the right framework is crucial to optimize performance and ensure a good user experience. In this article, we analyze four of the most popular frameworks/libraries: React, Angular, Vue, and Svelte, comparing them in terms of weight, performance, rendering speed, and ease of learning.

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1. Svelte: The Leanest and Most Performant

πŸ”ΉInitial size: ~1.6 KB (min+gzip)
πŸ”ΉPerformance: Excellent, because it doesn't use a virtual DOM
πŸ”ΉRendering speed: Very high, thanks to direct compilation to JavaScript
πŸ”ΉLearning curve: Easy
πŸ”ΉEcosystem: Less mature than React and Angular

Svelte is unique in its approach: instead of executing code in the browser with a runtime, it compiles components to pure JavaScript. This makes it extremely fast and lightweight, avoiding the overhead of a virtual DOM.

When to choose it?

  • If you want an ultra-optimized and lightweight app
  • If you are looking for a simpler syntax than React or Angular
  • If you don't need a very large ecosystem

πŸ“Œ Benchmark: According to JS Framework Benchmark tests, Svelte offers the best performance in terms of rendering time and responsiveness.

2. Vue: The Best Balance Between Performance and Ease

πŸ”ΉInitial size: ~16 KB (min+gzip)
πŸ”ΉPerformance: Very good, thanks to an optimized virtual DOM
πŸ”ΉRendering Speed: Faster than React, but slower than Svelte
πŸ”ΉLearning Curve: Easy/Moderate
πŸ”ΉEcosystem: Mature, with great support

Vue is appreciated for its flexibility and simplicity, with a clear syntax and a gentle learning curve. It uses a reactive and optimized virtual DOM, improving performance compared to React.

When to choose it?

  • If you want a framework that is easy to learn, but powerful
  • If you are looking for a good balance between performance and community
  • If you need a framework with support for both small and large applications

πŸ“Œ Benchmark: In the JS Framework Benchmark tests, Vue shows very good handling of rendering and DOM operations, positioning itself between React and Svelte in terms of speed.

3. React: The Largest Ecosystem

πŸ”ΉInitial size: ~42 KB (min+gzip)
πŸ”ΉPerformance: Good, but with higher overhead than Vue and Svelte
πŸ”ΉRendering Speed: Depends on optimizations (memoization, concurrent mode)
πŸ”ΉLearning Curve: Moderate
πŸ”ΉEcosystem: The largest, with the most libraries available

React is the most popular frontend library in the world. Based on a virtual DOM, React can be highly performant, but requires manual optimizations such as useMemo and useCallback.

When to choose it?

  • If you want maximum compatibility with third-party libraries
  • If you work in a team with other developers
  • If you develop long-term projects with a large community support

πŸ“Œ Benchmark: React is not the fastest among the frameworks tested in JS Framework Benchmark, but with advanced optimization techniques it can compete well with Vue.

4. Angular: The Most Complete, but Heavy

πŸ”ΉInitial size: ~75 KB (min+gzip)
πŸ”ΉPerformance: Good, but heavier for small projects
πŸ”ΉRendering speed: Slower than Vue and React
πŸ”ΉLearning curve: High
πŸ”ΉEcosystem: Large, with many features included

Angular is a complete and structured framework, ideal for large-scale enterprise applications. However, it is heavier and more complex than the others, making it less suitable for small or medium projects.

When to choose it?

  • If you work in an enterprise context with large teams
  • If you need a framework with everything included (routing, state management, dependency injection)
  • If you want a solid and scalable architecture

πŸ“Œ Benchmark: In the JS Framework Benchmark tests, Angular is the slowest of the four frameworks analyzed, mainly due to its structural overhead.

Which Framework to Choose?

comparative table

πŸ”₯ The choice depends on the project:

  • Choose Svelte for the best performance and lightness
  • Choose Vue if you want a good balance between simplicity and power
  • Choose React if you want maximum community support
  • Choose Angular for complex enterprise applications

If you want maximum speed and minimalism, Svelte is the right choice. For more structured projects, Vue or React offer an excellent compromise. Finally, Angular remains the best for complex enterprise applications. πŸš€


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References

Top comments (9)

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jabarihunt profile image
Jabari Hunt

React is like Laravel in the PHP world... You get everything you need, a lot more of what you don't, really bad performance (compared to most other frameworks), but somehow it manages to remain the de facto standard.

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brense profile image
Rense Bakker

Angular would be the Laravel, batteries included... React is the complete opposite of Laravel tbh... It doesn't include any batteries, you have to pick everything yourself from the ecosystem.

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zchnim profile image
Zchnim

Why skip Solid?

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techelopment profile image
Techelopment

there is no particular reason, i will include it in my next articles πŸ˜‰

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dariomannu profile image
Dario Mannu

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Which JavaScript framewok to chosse for this year?

  • React, blah, blah, blah...
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  • Vue, blah, blah, blah...

Other readers on dev.to β€” πŸ’€πŸ˜΄πŸ’€

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andrewtrefethen profile image
AndrewTrefethen

The fastest frontend framework is no frontend framework.

Unless you absolutely need strong SPA features where things HAVE to change without a reload, then just use express and a server-side templating engine and go about your day. You'll save significant amounts of time and energy and likely wind up with a more performant/smaller result in the end.

If you really need to be a SPA, then vue or svelte are going to be a smoother dev experience of you need to learn a framework from scratch. If you already are familiar with a specific framework, then that is your next best pick. I'd stay away from react if you can, I've seen far more teams get it wrong than right and I don't think it's good stewardship to use a tool that leads to higher rates of dev errors and performance degradations over one that is more difficult to screw up.

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dariomannu profile image
Dario Mannu • Edited

The fastest frontend framework is no frontend framework.

It's a bit paradoxical but you can actually make a framework at least a little bit faster than typical vanilla when performing DOM updates, but also significantly faster and more responsive for when you have massive amounts of updates and you start adding schedulers, sync up with animation frames, web worker bridges, etc... all the usual good stuff that if you start adding to a vanilla app, you'd end up calling a framework anyway, in the end. :)

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sanju_a1b557db5d40938ff72 profile image
Sanju • Edited

How did you deduce Angular performance as "Good (but heavy)" from the benchmark you mentioned. To me it looks exactly same if not slightly better than react in terms of performance. What does the "heavy" mean? Is it memory or cpu usage or something else? From what I've seen, angular uses less runtime memory since it does not have a virtual dom like react and similar frameworks and uses an incremental dom.

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naveenchandar profile image
Naveenchandar

Nothing gonna replace or compete with React as of now nor in span of 2 or 3 years. React is way ahead.
PS: Not against other frameworks.