Svelte Compiles Away. Our Bundle Was Still Huge.

When "no runtime" doesn't mean "small bundle" — and the framework promise that didn't survive production.

Look, I need to be honest with you.

I fell for the Svelte hype. Hard.

“No virtual DOM.” “Compiles to vanilla JavaScript.” “Tiny bundles.” The marketing was perfect. The demos were blazing fast. The DX was chef’s kiss.

So we rewrote our dashboard in Svelte. Full rewrite. Three months of work.

And our bundle? Still 380KB gzipped.

Wait, what?

The Promise That So…