What's the benefits using Svelte5 as a solo developer?

[taishi55]

I've developed many commercial apps using Svelte. As a solo developer, the simplicity of Svelte 4 allowed me to create complex apps without extensive planning. However, Svelte 5 introduces a lot of changes that make it hard for me to stay motivated. These changes are extremely time-consuming, especially since I have to refactor all my commercial apps to adapt to the new version. While the new syntax may be beneficial for team projects, it feels unnecessary for a solo developer. I thought Svelte was a framework geared towards solo indie developers.

[david-plugge]

It does absolutely make no difference wether you work in a team or solo. In a team everyone has to adapt aswell. This is more about you disliking the changes which many did at first.
Svelte was probably never meant to be used by a specific group of people, the goal is to provide better DX for everyone.
Only you can answer your question. Is it worth your time learning the new stuff? If not go with something you know. But keep in mind that every change to svelte or any other library has a reason and lots of talented devs have thought about how things can be made better.

[mig-hub]

I agree with @david-plugge that it is more a question of you liking the changes or not and adapt to a new style. The good news is that for the time being I think you can continue using the old syntax and still benefit from the speed improvements.

My experience so far with the new syntax is that it makes things slightly longer in some places, but also shorter in others. my favourite one so far is the fact that we use regular functions properties for events. For me the whole dispatch boilerplate was producing unnecessary noise where actually you just wanna pass a callback, just the way you do in many languages, including javascript.

I rather like the old export let simplicity, but to be fair, while I got used to the $: reactivity syntax, it always felt like a hack to me. I think the new runes for state, derived, effect, etc are much clearer at the end of the day and look more like javascript.

What is funny is that previously I was using Nuxt(Vue) for my projects before switching to Svelte. And a similar situation happened. A major update came up and things became better but more complicated. And consequently for people who have chosen Vue for its refreshing simplicity, they felt strongly about the update, including me. I really thought it was a shift and I disliked it. But in this case with Svelte I feel like most changes are done for a reason I roughly understand. I had a lot more time getting used to the new router notation. Not the fact that paths became directories instead of files, because this is definitely justified. But the naming with all the symbols. I am a Vim user and in Vim, a plus sign before a file name in tabs indicates that the file has unsaved changes. So, not ideal.

Anyway, it is worth checking the docs and see how these changes make sense. Then if worse comes to worse, there are plenty of frameworks out there. One of them will make you feel comfortable if this one doesn't.

[taishi55]

I believe these changes aren't worth the effort needed to refactor our existing Svelte apps. It feels like Svelte has copied Vue 3's syntax while making unnecessary adjustments, like removing <slot> tags.

[kvetoslavnovak]

I understand the sentiment. To migrate to Svelte 5 means to do a lot of stuff with a risk to lose server side / SSR features with $effect. But the enhancement and better DX of/when migrating is really a question. You do a lot of work but get nearly nothing, just a good feeling you upgraded to the lastest Svelte 5.
I would stick with Svelte 4 in existing apps and wait a little bit. Regarding new apps I would start with Svelte 5 though.

[taishi55]

#14131 (comment)

It's explained there. Overall, I don't like Svelte 5.

[david-plugge]

Well $: c = a + b is the same as const c = $derived(a + b). An effect is, as mentioned in the docs usually not what you need. C is computed from other state. That is what svelte 5 is good at, avoiding side effects. It forces you to write clean and understandable Code which svelte 4 was less strict at.

[taishi55]

I'm not smart enough to care all the stuff. Just build stuff to make money...

[david-plugge]

You are definately smart enough to use svelte 5 if you understand svelte 4. There are a few differences to learn but its worth it. Every other framework using Signals (solid, angular, vue, ... and eventually react) will or do look similar. That is a huge benefit for developers as its way easier to understand code written in these frameworks even If you never used them.

[realfakenerd]

@david-plugge I think he didn't really understand Svelte 5