There are about a couple dozen frontend frameworks, with Vue and Svelte among the Top 5 of the most wanted of the year 2022. Previously we already took a look at React vs Svelte. Today we are making a comparison of Svelte.js vs Vue.js to help you figure out which one to give preference when developing a digital product for your business project in 2023.
But let’s be upfront: this is not a black-and-white question with one decisive answer “pick this one, not the other.” There is no universal answer in Svelte vs Vue, so the debate around choosing a framework is ongoing and won’t die out soon.
What does it mean? Is there no answer? There is, of course. But it is a bit more complex and entirely depends on your goals and specifications. We gathered all the relevant information in this article.
Vue.js is a JavaScript framework for developing user interfaces (UI) and single-page applications (SPA). One of the most popular softwares out there, it’s widely used and has a lot of support from major companies. Evan You, who previously used Angular while working for Google, released Vue in February 2014, which means it is quite a well-established framework with a large community of developers and a lot of traction.
Svelte is a compiler, and this is what makes it stand out among other frontend frameworks. Created in November 2016, Svelte has seen significant growth and substantial involvement in an active community.
Let’s compare the Svelte vs Vue framework on several crucial features essential to consider when building web apps.
To compare Svelte vs Vue's performance, let’s dig deeper into three crucial things that contribute to speed, stability, and efficiency.
What size?
The bundle size for the latest version of Svelte is just 4.5kb, while the compressed weight is only 1.7kb, according to Bundlephobia. Compare it to Vue’s 94.6kb, where compact size is still no less than 33.9kb. The difference between Vue and Svelte is drastic! Vue is not the biggest of them all! Svelte gives other popular frameworks a good run for their money, undoubtedly.
Why it matters?
If you are not a dev yourself, you may think: “that’s great and all, but is it such a big deal”? The thing is that the bundle size can directly influence your website’s performance. Large bundles can cause prolonged loading and webpage rendering, hinder users’ interactions, or even cause irritating delays in page scrolling. All adds up to a bad user experience. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily lead straight to a catastrophe when working with either Svelte or Vue but considering you have literal seconds to grab a client’s attention, this can make or break the deal. Does a user stays and engages with your services on a deeper level? Or abandon your website entirely in favor of competitors with better-optimized websites?
Conclusion
As you can see in the picture, data from Bundlephobia clearly shows how the bundle size influences the download time. Performance is not something to neglect, and bundle size is a part that contributes to efficiency, which means it is something to keep an eye on. And in the Svelte and Vue comparison, Svelte is undoubtedly a winner.
What the hell is DOM?
And more importantly, why should you care? It’s simple: DOM, or Document Object Model, is the logical tree-like structure of your website that is loaded in a browser. It represents the way a web page is accessed and manipulated. It is an interconnection of essential objects, and how a framework uses DOM is vital. It is part of what determines the differences in Svelte vs Vue speed in favor of Svelte.
While nearly, if not all, frontend frameworks create and use virtual DOM to incorporate changes into a website, Svelte gets rid of it completely. Svelte completely negates the diffing part where the differences in VDOM and real DOM are “reconciled.”
Why is it such a huge deal?
The difference between Svelte.js vs Vue here is an interesting one. Before Svelte, it was a popular notion that a framework should use virtual DOM because the real one is slow and painful to edit. Now, it’s not that literal when you take a closer look: after all, it is the DOM that makes a website run, and a virtual DOM is more of a temporary solution, if you may, a crutch in its fashion. So Svelte’s developer, Rich Harris, points out that virtual DOM is pure overhead code, and you do not need that clunky part to create your app and make it perform well. So now, the absence of virtual DOM makes Svelte stand out among others. Designed as a compiler, Svelte surgically incorporates all changes at the building part directly into the real DOM, so there is no need for a virtual DOM.
Conclusion
Svelte is unique, although it doesn’t mean frameworks that use VDOM, like Vue, are automatically worse. But the absence of virtual DOM gives Svelte an edge in enhancing its famous swiftness.
What about it?
Reactivity is a significant part of both frameworks. The image below showing the code part demonstrates reactivity: you click the button, interact with the software, and update the data according to a user’s action. Two-way binding is a huge part of this and is what makes both Svelte and Vue such great options. Changing data in one place means it automatically updates in another, with the possibility of sharing data between a template and a class.
Here's the example of how a simple count button code looks in Svelte, short and sweet:
And compare how Vue handles it, creaing more lines of code with more complex syntax:
When is it crucial?
It is not unique specifically to Vue or Svelte, but both of them, and incredibly Svelte, make this practice much easier to achieve. When creating MVPs, SPAs, and SaaS websites, reactivity and production efficiency are especially important.
Conclusion
In this regard, the answer to the question is Svelte better than Vue. In our opinion, it is a “yes.” Moreover, in our practice, Svelte handles these tasks better than any other framework on the market.
Regarding the popularity of the Vue vs Svelte framework, Vue is at the 6th spot with 18.82%. Svelte is at the 16th with a more modest 4.58%, according to StackOverflow 2022 survey.
There is also “the most wanted” metric, where developers that do not work with software express interest in picking it up. In this regard, Vue.js is at the 3rd spot with 14.6%, and Svelte is just a little behind in the 5th place and 9.34%. All while the Google trends seem to stay relatively stable: there are more search results for Vue than for Svelte, so Svelte continues to be a less explored option in the community.
Surprisingly, no, it is not the same metric. StackOverflow also judges tech on the “loved vs. dreaded” metric among the developers. And regarding the reputation of being the most well-received, Svelte is in 2nd place with 75.28% positive responses, and Vue is in 10th place with 63.16% positive responses from the community.
Being at the forefront of frameworks and kicking around for two years longer than Svelte, Vue became widely known, earning its place in “the big three” and undoubtedly contributing to people thinking about how to choose between Vue and Svelte. Despite that, Svelte has been solid since its release and climbing in the top two most loved frameworks. Svelte’s community is active, and while it is not the most significant player on the market, Svelte certainly carved a place for itself with an excellent reputation among the dev community.
In terms of prospects, what makes a framework lifespan more promising is the assurance of significant companies backing up a software’s development, using it in their product, and subsequently giving it more prospects for the future.
Picking a suitable framework from a colorful bunch can be daunting and confusing, so choosing one of the safest options regarding employment, maintenance, and pre-made resources is more manageable at the start. Hence, The Top 3 frontend frameworks, React, Angular, and Vue itself, are considered the most reliable and favorable options. Those three have been around for a long time, and significant players like Facebook, Meta, and Google are currently using them in their digital products, among many others. Such backing should also explain why in Svelte.js vs. Vue, Vue is that much more popular than Svelte.
Speaking of which, what about Svelte?
One of the concerns in the early days was Svelte vanishing into oblivion, never reaching its peak, or just being displaced by another framework, as it was seen many times in the past with the development of web tech. Lack of insurance was one of the drawbacks when picking between Vue vs Svelte, and Svelte needed to be more developed. At the same time, SvelteKit, a supporting toolset, existed only in pre-alpha.
It has been a long road since then, and on November 11, 2021, Rich Harris, the editor and developer in The New York Times and the creator of Svelte, joined Vercel, as was announced in their blog. Vercel, formally known as Zeit, is a major American cloud platform as a service company and an enterprise that maintains Next.js — another well-known framework. So saying Svelte doesn’t have significant backing is no longer valid.
Everything digital is always at the forefront of technological development, so everything moves quickly. Software quickly becoming obsolete is where the primary concern lies when comparing frameworks, including Svelte.js vs Vue. A framework you’ve dedicated significant resources to suddenly vanishing out of existence, leaving you face-to-face with legacy software with no support, releases, or updates — just a nightmare. But it is undoubtedly not a fate that awaits Vue. And we firmly believe that this is not something you should be worried about with Svelte as well, as it is much more possible that Svelte will continue gaining more momentum in the future.
So is Vue better than Svelte? We argue not in any way. Should you rush out to your developers and demand to transfer all your projects to Vue? No, certainly not. The future is not here to haunt your dreams in the form of a funky Svelte logo. Vue is not an outdated framework by any means. On the contrary, Vue takes the best practices from React and Angular while keeping its spot in the Top 3 alongside them, having the backing of several global companies like Netflix, UpWork, and Nintendo, and receiving significant updates as late as 2022. In short: Vue is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Svelte is a dark horse but in no way less excellent
What about Svelte, then? Svelte is excellent. Yes, we may be biased here. But Svelte being as good of a choice as it is, this is what made us start working with it in the first place! It’s similar to Vue but adds up some unique good practices, being a compiler. The difference between Svelte and Vue includes Svelte’s tiny bundle size, Svelte having no overhead in virtual DOM, its syntax being intuitive, and the clean code. Svelte is an excellent tool all around.
Speaking from experience, our team focuses primarily on building MVPs for startups and SaaS websites for companies working in niches like finance. For our purposes, Svelte gives that edge in performance and delivery time that is hard to find in any other framework. And many folks in the community agree with us, expressing their delight online in articles and forums. But don’t just take our word for it — try it for your project today and see for yourself.
If you need to choose between Svelte and Vue, why not give Svelte a chance and let us handle it for you? WarmDevs has extensive experience working with Svelte and SvelteKit. As you have already gathered, this framework is an excellent tool for developing web apps, especially MVPs.
MVP is the best way to get your service tested on the market
It is more affordable, much faster in production than a full-scale web app, and doesn’t require the same level of commitment. At the same time, MVP provides scalability for the future when your business will need to grow, and you will need to develop a website together with it.
Whether you are launching a startup or managing a SaaS business, our team will be happy to help. Let us handle the technical part, to save you time and money. Get in touch — we can’t wait to hear about your project!
Please take a look at our low-code solutions, such as Webflow development services.
With a tiny bundle size and no virtual DOM as overhead, Svelte promises the great potential to build fast-performant web apps. Of course, those are just examples that don’t describe the full extent of this framework. With regular updates on the technical part and libraries slowly but steadily growing with the active community, Svelte provides a toolset to build quick, reactive, and potentially scalable web apps, MVPs, and SPAs.
There are a lot of similarities between those two softwares. But comparing Vue vs Svelte, Svelte seems to be about 30% faster than the rest of the frameworks. Which means it outperforms Vue in this regard as well.
Frankly, you can’t go wrong with both Svelte and Vue. But while there may not be much point in moving all your projects from Vue to Svelte, it is a great idea to try Svelte in the next one. It provides excellent functionality and incredible performance speed, and alongside SvelteKit, it is a fantastic toolset for building web apps and MVPs.
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