Marvels Of Using Svelte and SvelteKit – JSJ 566
Svelte is a modern JavaScript framework that has gained popularity for its innovative approach to building web applications. In this article, we will explore the marvels of using Svelte and its companion framework, SvelteKit.
What is Svelte?
Svelte is a component-based JavaScript framework that allows developers to build efficient and reactive web applications. One of the key features of Svelte is its unique approach to building user interfaces. Unlike traditional frameworks that use a virtual DOM, Svelte compiles code to highly optimized and minimal JavaScript at build time, resulting in faster load times and smaller bundle sizes.
Benefits of Using Svelte
- Efficient DOM Updates: Svelte’s reactive nature enables efficient updating of the DOM, resulting in smoother user interactions and better performance.
- Lightweight: Svelte’s compiler generates clean and optimized code, resulting in smaller bundle sizes and faster load times.
- Easy to Learn: Svelte’s simple and intuitive syntax makes it easy for developers to learn and use.
- Rich Ecosystem: Svelte has a vibrant ecosystem with a growing number of libraries and tools to enhance development workflows.
Introducing SvelteKit
SvelteKit is a companion framework to Svelte that provides a streamlined and powerful way to build web applications. It offers features such as server-side rendering, routing, and pre-fetching, making it a comprehensive solution for building modern web applications.
Marvels of Using Svelte and SvelteKit
By leveraging Svelte and SvelteKit, developers can enjoy a range of benefits, including:
- Rapid Development: Svelte’s simplicity and SvelteKit’s comprehensive features enable rapid development of web applications.
- SEO-Friendly: With server-side rendering and pre-fetching capabilities, SvelteKit helps improve search engine optimization for web applications.
- Flexibility: Svelte’s component-based architecture and SvelteKit’s routing capabilities provide flexibility in building complex web applications.
- Performance: Svelte’s optimized code and efficient DOM updates result in better performance for web applications.
Conclusion
Svelte and SvelteKit offer a modern and efficient approach to building web applications. With their innovative features and streamlined workflows, developers can create powerful and performant web applications with ease. As the JavaScript ecosystem continues to evolve, Svelte and SvelteKit are poised to become go-to frameworks for web application development.
Re: SvelteKit: Right now I can’t start with it on my biggest project, but I’d love to. This is just because I need a sort a micro front-ends style integration.
Anyway, in my case it’d end up taking the shape of a SSR-implementation (as opposed to SSG) sitting in it’s own Node.js “front-end” to a separate PHP-based CMS back-end via some kind of API integration (not sure what that’d be, e.g. REST? GraphQL? tRPC? It’s complicated so time will tell).
p.s. On that micro front-ends thing (my current situation): I’ll be using a little library called svelte-tag to implement, which leverages custom elements API to help me easily inject Svelte components using a custom element-style syntax (without the limitations of the Svelte-native custom elements which utilize the shadow DOM). This is good for legacy apps like what I’m working in right now (with a PHP based front-end template rendering system and ancient JS, complete with jQuery…).
Just an FYI for anyone who watches this. Svelte has no VDOM. Adam compared it to React this way, but actually Svelte was the first of these new frameworks to challenge the idea of a VDOM, and actually works through surgical updates.
This is one of the better videos I've come across on the topic of SvelteKit — it's well-balanced and packed with insights on topics anybody considering SvelteKit will likely care about. Really sad state of Youtube algo that this video has so few views considering the quality of content. I surprised to be the first person leaving a comment after 4 days up! Anyway, thank you for this!
I've been evaluating SvelteKit for a couple of weeks now, and am inclined to take the plunge by switching over to it from Nextjs (3 mo into new project) — but it is by no means an easy decision. For me, what makes the decision hard is Nextjs live (stateful) reload is a huge time-saver when iterating on the UI (e.g.,a modal stays open on update), and server-side debugging is more clunky in SvelteKt (works, but no maps). Other than that, the Svelte DX destroys React, IMO.
Ecosystem is also a factor, but Discord channel is great, and lack of component libraries has not been an issue for me (at least yet :-)) — in fact, one of the reasons I opted to give Svelte another look recently is I started to see quite a bit of support for Svelte by components I was using in React. So I do believe Svelte is well setup for success, else I wouldn't be investing my time in it. Thanks again for the video!