react-dom vs preact vs inferno
Lightweight React Alternatives Comparison
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What's Lightweight React Alternatives?

Inferno, Preact, and React-DOM are libraries designed to facilitate the creation of user interfaces in web applications, each with its unique focus and performance characteristics. Inferno is known for its high performance and is optimized for speed, making it suitable for applications where rendering speed is critical. Preact is a lightweight alternative to React, providing a similar API but with a smaller footprint, making it ideal for projects where size is a concern. React-DOM is a part of the React ecosystem that specifically handles rendering React components to the DOM, ensuring efficient updates and rendering. These libraries cater to different needs in the web development landscape, allowing developers to choose based on performance, size, and compatibility with existing React code.

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react-dom37,941,895234,4326.55 MB98014 days agoMIT
preact5,896,37237,3441.44 MB1545 days agoMIT
inferno156,34116,138586 kB38a month agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-dom vs preact vs inferno

Performance

  • react-dom:

    React-DOM focuses on efficiently rendering React components to the DOM. It employs a reconciliation algorithm that optimizes updates and minimizes re-renders, ensuring that only the necessary parts of the UI are updated when the state changes.

  • preact:

    Preact is significantly smaller than React, which translates to faster load times and improved performance in smaller applications. It achieves this by providing a similar API to React but with a more lightweight implementation, making it suitable for projects where performance and size are critical.

  • inferno:

    Inferno is designed for maximum performance, boasting a virtual DOM that is optimized for speed. It uses a highly efficient diffing algorithm that minimizes the number of updates to the actual DOM, resulting in faster rendering times, especially in applications with frequent updates.

API Compatibility

  • react-dom:

    React-DOM is an integral part of the React ecosystem, providing a consistent API for rendering React components. It is tightly coupled with React and is essential for any React application that needs to interact with the DOM.

  • preact:

    Preact is designed to be compatible with React, allowing developers to use most React libraries and tools with minimal changes. This compatibility makes it an attractive option for those looking to reduce bundle size without sacrificing functionality.

  • inferno:

    Inferno offers a React-like API, making it easier for developers familiar with React to transition to or integrate Inferno into their projects. However, it also introduces some unique features that may require learning new patterns.

Bundle Size

  • react-dom:

    React-DOM is not a standalone library and is part of the larger React ecosystem. While it is optimized for performance, it does contribute to the overall bundle size of a React application, which can be a consideration for developers looking to optimize their applications.

  • preact:

    Preact is one of the smallest libraries available for building user interfaces, making it an excellent choice for projects where every kilobyte counts. Its minimal size allows for faster downloads and improved performance on low-bandwidth connections.

  • inferno:

    Inferno is lightweight, but it is still larger than Preact. Its focus on performance comes with some additional features that can increase the bundle size slightly compared to Preact, making it a good choice for performance-focused applications that can afford a slightly larger footprint.

Community and Ecosystem

  • react-dom:

    React-DOM benefits from the extensive React ecosystem, which includes a vast array of libraries, tools, and community support. This makes it a safe choice for developers looking for robust solutions and resources.

  • preact:

    Preact has a growing community and ecosystem, with many developers contributing to its development and creating plugins and tools. Its compatibility with React further enhances its ecosystem, allowing developers to leverage existing React resources.

  • inferno:

    Inferno has a smaller community compared to React, which can lead to fewer resources and third-party libraries. However, its focus on performance has garnered a dedicated following among developers looking for speed.

Learning Curve

  • react-dom:

    React-DOM is straightforward for those already familiar with React. Its integration into the React ecosystem means that learning it is often part of the broader learning process of React itself.

  • preact:

    Preact's API is nearly identical to React's, making it easy for React developers to pick up. The learning curve is minimal, allowing for quick adoption in existing projects.

  • inferno:

    Inferno's API is similar to React, which can ease the learning curve for developers familiar with React. However, some unique features may require additional learning for optimal usage.

How to Choose: react-dom vs preact vs inferno
  • inferno:

    Choose Inferno if you need a highly performant library that can handle complex UIs with minimal overhead, especially for applications requiring rapid rendering and updates.

Similar Npm Packages to react-dom

react-dom is a crucial package in the React ecosystem that provides methods for interacting with the DOM in a React application. It acts as the bridge between React components and the browser's DOM, enabling developers to render React components to the DOM and manage their lifecycle. While react-dom is widely used and well-supported, there are alternative libraries that offer similar functionality with different performance characteristics and features. Here are a couple of notable alternatives:

  • inferno is a fast, lightweight alternative to React that aims to provide a similar API while optimizing performance. It focuses on speed and efficiency, making it an excellent choice for applications that require high performance, especially in scenarios where rendering speed is critical. Inferno achieves this by implementing a highly optimized virtual DOM and a small footprint, making it suitable for mobile applications or projects where performance is a top priority. If you're looking for a React-like experience with enhanced performance, Inferno is worth considering.

  • preact is another lightweight alternative to React that offers a similar API but with a much smaller bundle size. Preact is designed to be compatible with React, making it easy to switch between the two. It provides a fast rendering engine and a minimalistic approach, which is ideal for projects that prioritize performance and load times. Preact is particularly useful for applications where size matters, such as progressive web apps (PWAs) or applications targeting low-bandwidth environments.

To explore how react-dom compares with inferno and preact, check out the comparison: Comparing inferno vs preact vs react-dom.

Similar Npm Packages to preact

preact is a fast and lightweight alternative to React, designed for building user interfaces with a similar API. It is particularly well-suited for projects where performance and bundle size are critical, making it a popular choice for developers looking to create high-performance web applications. Preact provides a virtual DOM, enabling efficient updates and rendering, while maintaining compatibility with many React libraries and components.

While Preact is an excellent choice for many projects, there are several alternatives in the ecosystem that developers might consider:

  • inferno is a fast, lightweight JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It was designed to be highly performant and offers a similar API to React, making it easy for React developers to transition to Inferno. Inferno focuses on speed and efficiency, making it a great option for applications that require high performance, particularly in scenarios where rendering speed is critical. Its small size and fast rendering capabilities make it a compelling alternative to both React and Preact.

  • react is the most widely used library for building user interfaces. Developed by Facebook, React has a large ecosystem and community support, making it a go-to choice for many developers. While React is powerful and feature-rich, it can be heavier than alternatives like Preact and Inferno. However, its extensive ecosystem, including tools and libraries, makes it suitable for a wide range of applications, from small projects to large-scale enterprise solutions.

  • vue is another popular JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. Vue is known for its simplicity and flexibility, allowing developers to create interactive applications with ease. It offers a reactive data-binding system and a component-based architecture, similar to React and Preact. Vue's gentle learning curve and comprehensive documentation make it an attractive option for both beginners and experienced developers looking for an alternative to React or Preact.

To explore how Preact compares with Inferno, React, and Vue, check out the comparison: Comparing inferno vs preact vs react vs vue.

Similar Npm Packages to inferno

inferno is a fast, lightweight JavaScript library for building user interfaces, particularly for single-page applications. It is designed to be highly performant, making it an excellent choice for developers who prioritize speed and efficiency in their applications. Inferno's API is similar to React, which allows developers familiar with React to easily transition to using Inferno. However, there are several alternatives in the ecosystem that also provide robust solutions for building user interfaces. Here are a few notable ones:

  • preact is a fast, lightweight alternative to React, boasting a similar API but with a much smaller footprint. Preact is designed for high performance and is particularly well-suited for projects where size matters, such as mobile applications. It offers compatibility with many React libraries, making it easy to integrate into existing projects. If you're looking for a minimalistic approach to building user interfaces without sacrificing performance, Preact is a great option.

  • react is the most widely used library for building user interfaces, developed and maintained by Facebook. It provides a comprehensive ecosystem, including a rich set of tools and libraries. React's component-based architecture allows for reusable UI components, making it easy to manage complex user interfaces. If you're building a large-scale application or need extensive community support and resources, React is the go-to choice.

  • svelte is a relatively newer framework that shifts much of the work to compile time, resulting in highly optimized vanilla JavaScript code. Unlike other frameworks that rely on a virtual DOM, Svelte updates the DOM directly, leading to faster performance. Svelte's syntax is clean and intuitive, making it easy for developers to learn and use. If you want a modern approach to building user interfaces with minimal boilerplate, Svelte is worth considering.

  • vue is a progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. It is designed to be incrementally adoptable, meaning you can use it for a single component or scale it up to a full-fledged application. Vue's reactive data binding and component-based architecture make it easy to manage state and build interactive UIs. If you're looking for a flexible framework that can grow with your project, Vue is an excellent choice.

For a detailed comparison of these libraries, check out the following link: Comparing inferno vs preact vs react vs svelte vs vue.

README for react-dom

react-dom

This package serves as the entry point to the DOM and server renderers for React. It is intended to be paired with the generic React package, which is shipped as react to npm.

Installation

npm install react react-dom

Usage

In the browser

import { createRoot } from 'react-dom/client';

function App() {
  return <div>Hello World</div>;
}

const root = createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(<App />);

On the server

import { renderToPipeableStream } from 'react-dom/server';

function App() {
  return <div>Hello World</div>;
}

function handleRequest(res) {
  // ... in your server handler ...
  const stream = renderToPipeableStream(<App />, {
    onShellReady() {
      res.statusCode = 200;
      res.setHeader('Content-type', 'text/html');
      stream.pipe(res);
    },
    // ...
  });
}

API

react-dom

See https://react.dev/reference/react-dom

react-dom/client

See https://react.dev/reference/react-dom/client

react-dom/server

See https://react.dev/reference/react-dom/server

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