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Svelte VS Webpacker

Compare Svelte VS Webpacker and see what are their differences

Svelte logo Svelte

Cybernetically enhanced web apps

Webpacker logo Webpacker

Use Webpack to manage app-like JavaScript modules in Rails - rails/webpacker
  • Svelte Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

We recommend LibHunt Svelte for discovery and comparisons of trending Svelte projects.

  • Webpacker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

Svelte features and specs

  • Performance
    Svelte shifts much of the work from runtime to compile time, resulting in faster and more efficient web applications. By compiling components to highly optimized vanilla JavaScript, it reduces the overhead and boosts performance.
  • File Size
    Due to its compile-time nature, Svelte produces smaller bundle sizes compared to other frontend frameworks like React or Angular, which can significantly improve load times and performance.
  • Simplicity
    The framework is designed to be more accessible and easier to understand. Svelte’s syntax is clean and straightforward, allowing developers to get up and running quickly with minimal boilerplate.
  • Reactivity
    Svelte provides a simple and intuitive way to handle reactivity by using built-in language constructs like assignments. This means no complicated state management libraries are necessary for many use cases.
  • Less Boilerplate
    Svelte reduces the boilerplate code typically required in other frameworks, resulting in a cleaner and more maintainable codebase. This can help accelerate development and reduce bugs.
  • Reactive Programming
    SvelteKit leverages Svelte's reactive programming model, allowing developers to write less code while achieving better functionality through automatic reactivity.
  • Integrated Router
    SvelteKit includes a built-in router, which simplifies the creation of multi-page applications and enables easy setup of dynamic routes.
  • SSR and SSG
    SvelteKit supports Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Static Site Generation (SSG) out of the box, giving developers flexibility in how they build and deploy their applications.
  • Opinionated but Flexible
    While SvelteKit provides an opinionated setup to streamline the development process, it also allows for customization to fit a developer’s specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of Svelte

  • Ecosystem Maturity
    Svelte’s ecosystem is not as mature or extensive as React’s or Angular’s. There are fewer third-party libraries, tools, and resources available, which might make it more challenging to find solutions for less common problems.
  • Learning Curve
    While Svelte itself is simpler, its approach is quite different from traditional frameworks like React and Angular. This can require a mental shift and time to learn new paradigms, especially for developers coming from those backgrounds.
  • Community Support
    Given that Svelte has a smaller user base and community compared to more established frameworks, finding community support, tutorials, and best practices can sometimes be more difficult.
  • Tooling
    While Svelte has good official tooling and support, it may lack some of the advanced tools and integrations available for other frameworks, which can slow down development for more complex applications.
  • SEO and SSR
    Although Svelte has options for server-side rendering (SSR) and improving SEO, handling these aspects is not as out-of-the-box or mature compared to frameworks like Next.js for React.
  • Community Size
    SvelteKit has a smaller community compared to other frameworks, which can affect the availability of online resources, tutorials, and community-driven support.
  • Tooling and Integration
    Some commonly used development tools and integrations may not be fully compatible with SvelteKit, necessitating workarounds or additional configuration.
  • Frequent Updates
    As a newer framework, SvelteKit undergoes frequent updates and changes, which can sometimes lead to breaking changes or require developers to frequently update their knowledge and projects.
  • Market Adoption
    SvelteKit is less adopted in the industry compared to other frameworks, which might make it a less attractive option for companies looking for widely recognized and vetted solutions.

Webpacker features and specs

  • Modern JavaScript Features
    Webpacker allows Rails applications to utilize modern JavaScript features and tools, such as ES6 syntax, JSX, and TypeScript, thereby enhancing the developer experience and code quality.
  • Asset Bundling
    It efficiently bundles multiple JavaScript files into a single package, reducing load times and improving performance by minimizing the number of HTTP requests.
  • Integration with Rails
    As an official Rails library, Webpacker integrates seamlessly with the Rails framework, ensuring that front-end builds are consistent and easier to manage alongside Ruby on Rails projects.
  • Configurable
    Provides a highly configurable environment, allowing developers to customize their JavaScript and asset builds extensively to meet specific project needs.
  • Community Support
    Being part of the Rails ecosystem, Webpacker benefits from an extensive community support, with a wealth of third-party resources, documentation, and plugins available.

Possible disadvantages of Webpacker

  • Complexity
    Webpacker can introduce additional complexity, especially for developers not familiar with JavaScript tooling or the webpack configuration, which can lead to a steeper learning curve.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction and tooling required by Webpacker can add performance overhead during development with slower compilation and building times compared to simpler asset management solutions.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies can become burdensome as Webpacker requires handling both the Ruby Gems and the JavaScript packages through yarn or npm, increasing maintenance efforts.
  • Migration Path
    As newer tools and techniques emerge, moving away from Webpacker could require significant refactoring efforts, especially for applications with extensive custom configurations.
  • Deprecated Status
    Webpacker is no longer the recommended default for new Rails applications starting from Rails 7, which now prefers using esbuild or importmaps, potentially affecting its long-term viability.

Svelte videos

SvelteKit Breaking Changes 2022 - My Reactions and What You Need to Know!

More videos:

  • Review - Svelte vs React vs Angular vs Vue
  • Tutorial - SvelteKit Crash Course Tutorial #1 - What is SvelteKit?
  • Review - Why Svelte is the best JS "framework"
  • Review - Oh crap, here comes *another* JavaScript framework || SVELTE || Sveltejs

Webpacker videos

RailsConf 2020 CE - Webpacker, It-Just-Works, But How? by Justin Gordon

More videos:

  • Review - Should you use React with Webpacker in your Rails project? Rails MVC vs Single Page App (SPA)!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Svelte and Webpacker)
Javascript UI Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
Web Application Bundler
0 0%
100% 100
JavaScript Framework
100 100%
0% 0
JS Build Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Svelte and Webpacker

Svelte Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
SvelteJS is a modern JavaScript framework that is useful for building static web apps that are fast, lean, and fun. You can use Svelte to build single, reusable components and large or even small-scale projects. Svelte has started gaining attention because of its ability to produce smaller code bundles that run faster in web browsers.
Source: solguruz.com
Top 10 Next.js Alternatives You Can Try
This web development framework can help you perform the easiest tasks to develop the interface components that users can interact with within their browsers, such as the comment section. Moreover, it has SvelteKit to render the components of the entire page with best practices and developments. You can utilize this platform effortlessly to add basic functionalities and...
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
Cruise into the Svelte ecosystem with Sapper, a framework that takes all the brilliance of Svelte and dials it up for app building. It’s like Svelte’s outgoing cousin, optimizing for an even smoother ride from development to go-live.
10 Best Next.js Alternatives to Consider Today
SvelteKit, the official framework for Svelte, streamlines the development of Svelte applications. With an intuitive API, SvelteKit simplifies the creation of server-side rendered (SSR) and statically generated (SSG) applications while retaining the reactive nature that makes Svelte unique. If you're seeking a framework that marries simplicity with powerful capabilities,...
The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
The next of these Laravel alternatives is Svelte. It cuts through the complexity, snipping off any excess, pre-compiling its magic to keep your app lightweight without shedding any muscle. The end result? Lightning strikes in web performance.

Webpacker Reviews

We have no reviews of Webpacker yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Svelte seems to be a lot more popular than Webpacker. While we know about 387 links to Svelte, we've tracked only 17 mentions of Webpacker. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Svelte mentions (387)

  • Hyper – Outperform React on every metric
    What is the advantage over Svelte (https://svelte.dev/)? Especially since Svelte is already established and has an ecosystem. - Source: Hacker News / 2 days ago
  • SVQK - A Web Application Development Platform Using Svelte + Quarkus
    At Project Au Lait, we are developing and publishing an open-source asset called SVQK, which combines Svelte (Frontend) and Quarkus (Backend) for web application development. The asset includes automated testing tools and source code generation tools. This article introduces an overview of SVQK. (For instructions on how to use SVQK, refer to the Quick Start.). - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Why Svelte Might Be the Best Framework You Haven't Tried Yet 🚀
    Embrace the Ecosystem: Explore tools like SvelteKit for full-fledged app development. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Firebase: deploy a React application with Firebase Hosting
    Vite is a modern build tool created by Evan You, the same developer behind Vue.js. It is designed to provide a faster and leaner development experience for modern web projects. You can use Vite to create front-end projects in seconds: React, Svelte, Lit, Qwik and many others modern frameworks are supported. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Lexical 0.24 with Vanilla JS: Getting started
    Lexical is an open source project and considered the successor of Draft.js. It is primarily developed by Meta, licensed under MIT. It is not restricted to React, but supports Vanilla JS, too. The flexibility enables us to integrate it with other JS libraries such as Svelte and Vue. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

Webpacker mentions (17)

  • React + Ruby on Rails without any gems
    We will use Webpacker or JavaScript compiler and assets management. By following the webpacker installation guide, let’s add Webpacker and React to our application. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Collecting JavaScript code coverage with Capybara in Ruby on Rails application
    For example, there is a Ruby on Rails application that uses Webpacker and has JavaScript files that are covered by the system tests. Capybara is used as the system testing tool. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Asset Pipeline JS Migration
    Using Webpacker in Rails provides several advantages over the traditional asset pipeline. First, Webpacker uses JavaScript modules, which allows for better code organization and improved code reusability. Second, it offers modern frontend build tools, such as Babel and PostCSS, for transforming and compiling assets. Third, it provides faster build times and faster runtime performance through code splitting and... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Thank you Webpacker, Goodbye Webpacker
    This article is replace Webpacker with Simpacker and webpack. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • How to setup ruby on rails + Angular
    In ruby ​​on rails 7 what is the best way to properly install Angular because I can't find any documentation about it. The only tutorial that exists uses webpacker (https://github.com/rails/webpacker) but unfortunately it is no longer supported and no longer up to date in terms of security. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Svelte and Webpacker, you can also consider the following products

React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

Webpack - Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.

Vue.js - Reactive Components for Modern Web Interfaces

Turbolinks - Turbolinks makes navigating your web application faster

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.

Pingy CLI - Making Modern Websites Should Be Easier. Pingy is Here To Help.