React vs Preact: Lightweight Alternative UI Libraries

React and Preact are JavaScript libraries for building user interfaces. While React is the original, more popular library created by Facebook, Preact is a smaller, faster alternative that aims to be compatible with React's API. Preact offers similar features but with a much smaller file size (3KB vs React's ~40KB), making it great for projects where size matters.

UI Librariesfrontenduser-interfacecomponentsvirtual-domjavascript

Download Trends

	Stars	Issues	Version	UpdatedⓘLast publish date	CreatedⓘPackage creation date	SizeⓘMinified + Gzipped size
P preact	37,760	153	10.26.9	a month ago	10 years ago	install size 4.7 KB
R react	237,041	1,002	19.1.0	a month ago	14 years ago	install size 2.8 KB

Detailed Comparison

Technical Analysis

featureComparison

Both Preact and React are virtual DOM libraries that provide efficient rendering and updating of UI components. However, React has more advanced features like Context API, Hooks, and Concurrent React. Preact, on the other hand, has a smaller footprint and is more lightweight.

typescriptSupport

Both Preact and React have excellent TypeScript support, with official type definitions and integrations.

browserCompatibility

Both libraries support modern browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.

dependencies

Preact has fewer dependencies (1) compared to React (14).

performance

Preact is generally faster and more lightweight than React due to its smaller size and fewer dependencies.

Ecosystem Analysis

frameworkCompatibility

Both libraries are compatible with popular frameworks like Next.js, Gatsby, and Create React App.

communityActivity

React has a much larger and more active community, with more contributors and maintainers.

documentationQuality

Both libraries have high-quality documentation, with React's documentation being more comprehensive and detailed.

maintenanceStatus

React is maintained by Facebook, while Preact is maintained by a smaller team of developers.

Performance Comparison

bundleSizeAnalysis

Preact's bundle size is significantly smaller than React's (3.4KB vs 5.5KB).

runtimePerformance

Preact is generally faster than React in terms of rendering and updating components.

loadingTime

Preact's smaller size and fewer dependencies result in faster loading times.

memoryUsage

Preact uses less memory than React due to its smaller footprint.

Code Examples

Hello World with Preact

1import { h, render } from 'preact';
2
3function App() {
4  return <h1>Hello, World!</h1>;
5}
6
7render(<App />, document.body);

This code creates a simple 'Hello World' app using Preact's `h` function to create a virtual DOM element and the `render` function to render it to the DOM.

Hello World with React

1import React from 'react';
2import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
3
4function App() {
5  return <h1>Hello, World!</h1>;
6}
7
8ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));

This code creates a simple 'Hello World' app using React's JSX syntax to create a virtual DOM element and the `ReactDOM.render` function to render it to the DOM.

Recommendation

Summary

Preact is a lightweight and fast alternative to React, ideal for smaller projects or those with strict performance requirements. React is a more feature-rich and widely adopted library, suitable for larger and more complex applications.

Details

Preact is a better choice for smaller projects or those with strict performance requirements
React is a better choice for larger and more complex applications

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Similar Packages

Solid.js

95%

Solid is a JavaScript framework that looks very similar to React but runs much faster. It uses the same JSX syntax that React developers already know, but works differently under the hood.

If you know React, Solid will feel very familiar. It's perfect for React developers who want better performance without learning totally new concepts. The code looks almost the same as React.

Frontend Framework

Vue.js

90%

Vue is a progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. It's designed to be easy to learn and use, with a gentle learning curve and excellent documentation.

Like React and Preact, Vue lets you build websites using components. It's often easier for beginners to learn than React, and it's very fast. Many developers find Vue's syntax more straightforward and less confusing.

Frontend Framework

Inferno

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Inferno is an extremely fast, React-like library for building user interfaces. It's designed to be super quick and small in file size, while keeping many React features that developers love.

Inferno is almost a drop-in replacement for React, especially good for projects that need to be really fast and small. It works with most React code with only small changes needed.

Frontend Framework

Svelte

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Svelte is a modern framework that turns your components into highly optimized JavaScript at build time. Instead of using a virtual DOM like React, it updates the page directly when your data changes.

Svelte is great for developers who want React-like components but with better performance. It has less code to write and is becoming very popular because it's simple to understand.

Frontend Framework

Dependencies Comparison

preact

Dependencies

Dev Dependencies

@actions/github^6.0.0

@actions/glob^0.5.0

@babel/core^7.26.0

@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx^7.25.9

@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx-source^7.25.9

@babel/preset-env^7.26.0

@babel/register^7.25.9

@biomejs/biome^1.9.4

@types/chai^5.0.1

@types/mocha^10.0.0

@types/node^18.19.87

@types/sinon^17.0.3

@vitest/browser^3.2.1

@vitest/coverage-istanbul^3.2.1

babel-plugin-transform-rename-properties0.1.0

chai^5.2.0

coveralls^3.1.1

cross-env^7.0.3

errorstacks^2.4.1

esbuild^0.24.0

husky^9.1.7

kolorist^1.8.0

microbundle^0.15.1

mocha^11.0.0

npm-run-all2^7.0.0

oxlint^0.15.12

preact-render-to-string^6.5.0

prop-types^15.8.1

sade^1.8.1

sinon^19.0.2

sinon-chai^4.0.0

terser5.16.0

typescript5.1.6

undici^4.12.0

vite^6.2.0

vitest^3.2.1

webdriverio^9.15.0

Peer Dependencies

react

Dependencies

Dev Dependencies

Peer Dependencies

</a> </p> <p align="center">Fast <b>3kB</b> alternative to React with the same modern API.</p>

All the power of Virtual DOM components, without the overhead:

Familiar React API & patterns: ES6 Class, hooks, and Functional Components
Extensive React compatibility via a simple preact/compat alias
Everything you need: JSX, <abbr title="Virtual DOM">VDOM</abbr>, DevTools, <abbr title="Hot Module Replacement">HMR</abbr>, <abbr title="Server-Side Rendering">SSR</abbr>.
Highly optimized diff algorithm and seamless hydration from Server Side Rendering
Supports all modern browsers and IE11
Transparent asynchronous rendering with a pluggable scheduler

💁 More information at the Preact Website ➞

</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

You can find some awesome libraries in the awesome-preact list :sunglasses:

Getting Started

💁 Note: You don't need ES2015 to use Preact... but give it a try!

Tutorial: Building UI with Preact

With Preact, you create user interfaces by assembling trees of components and elements. Components are functions or classes that return a description of what their tree should output. These descriptions are typically written in JSX (shown underneath), or HTM which leverages standard JavaScript Tagged Templates. Both syntaxes can express trees of elements with "props" (similar to HTML attributes) and children.

To get started using Preact, first look at the render() function. This function accepts a tree description and creates the structure described. Next, it appends this structure to a parent DOM element provided as the second argument. Future calls to render() will reuse the existing tree and update it in-place in the DOM. Internally, render() will calculate the difference from previous outputted structures in an attempt to perform as few DOM operations as possible.

import { h, render } from 'preact';
// Tells babel to use h for JSX. It's better to configure this globally.
// See https://babeljs.io/docs/en/babel-plugin-transform-react-jsx#usage
// In tsconfig you can specify this with the jsxFactory
/** @jsx h */

// create our tree and append it to document.body:
render(
	<main>
		<h1>Hello</h1>
	</main>,
	document.body
);

// update the tree in-place:
render(
	<main>
		<h1>Hello World!</h1>
	</main>,
	document.body
);
// ^ this second invocation of render(...) will use a single DOM call to update the text of the <h1>

Hooray! render() has taken our structure and output a User Interface! This approach demonstrates a simple case, but would be difficult to use as an application grows in complexity. Each change would be forced to calculate the difference between the current and updated structure for the entire application. Components can help here – by dividing the User Interface into nested Components each can calculate their difference from their mounted point. Here's an example:

import { render, h } from 'preact';
import { useState } from 'preact/hooks';

/** @jsx h */

const App = () => {
	const [input, setInput] = useState('');

	return (
		<div>
			<p>Do you agree to the statement: "Preact is awesome"?</p>
			<input value={input} onInput={e => setInput(e.target.value)} />
		</div>
	);
};

render(<App />, document.body);

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License

MIT