I recently decided to rebuild both my personal and company portfolios.
For the past few years, I’ve been using Svelte (with Threlthe) and React (with R3F). However, most of the companies I work with prefer React due to its popularity.
That said, I always recommend Svelte for web-based 3D projects whenever possible. Not only does the development experience feel more intuitive, but the real standout is Svelte’s superior performance, especially for websites with heavy processing needs. There is a lot of research backing up Svelte’s performance, but it’s truly eye-opening when you experience it firsthand.
For example, while Digital Habitats is much more demanding in terms of effects, it runs much smoother compared to the heavier henridsgn.
Check it out:
Is it a fair comparison when they are different sites? Also, for me neither runs that great (admittedly using a reasonably old laptop GTX 1050)
It’s not a benchmark; they are absolutely different entities.
But as the developer who worked on both, I initially thought the React version would perform better since it used fewer animations and simpler geometry. However, to my surprise, I feel the Svelte version outperformed, even with significantly more complexity.
That said, I’m not suggesting that Threlte or Svelte is reinventing Three.js.
Three.js typically operates as a layer above its framework. It’s common for Three.js to be used alongside other resource-intensive components, such as GSAP, Framer, or data management libraries. If a framework optimizes these processes more effectively, it naturally frees up resources for Three.js.
Just my two cents—I’m much more inclined to use Svelte for Three.js projects in the future.
I recommend checking this out:
Threlte Documentation
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