{"slug": "preact", "name": "Preact", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 2, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 1.502, "rising": 0.67, "first": "2025-12-13", "latest": "2026-08-04", "why": "I do something similar, but with Bun + Preact, since I love that stack.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": false, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I do something similar, but with Bun + Preact, since I love that stack.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Preact"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 786661376, "item_id": 49166336, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166336", "by": "hsn915", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I hate bloat and require lightness, so I use Preact.", "excerpt": "If you are going to advocate against something, the alternative you propose needs to be better in some important area, other than \"not that thing\". What is the thing you hate about react, and what is the thing you require in an alternative? I hate bloat and require lightness, so I use Preact. I also hate complexity and difficult to read stuff, so when I look at the proposal here, I don't see anything appealing, other", "context": "", "use_case": "UI library", "switched_from": "", "story": "You don't need React: creating a minimal UI library in Vanilla JavaScript"}, {"id": 740112081, "item_id": 46257005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46257005", "by": "christophilus", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I do something similar, but with Bun + Preact, since I love that stack.", "excerpt": "Nice. I do something similar, but with Bun + Preact, since I love that stack. I\u2019ve found it very productive after the hurdle of the initial project setup (in which I wasted time crafting an RPC layer, etc, because I wanted to.)", "context": "", "use_case": "building HTML tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Useful patterns for building HTML tools"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["ui library", "backend templating", "building html tools"], "compared": [{"slug": "react-compiler", "name": "React Compiler", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "bun", "name": "Bun", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "react", "name": "React", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49165665", "title": "You don't need React: creating a minimal UI library in Vanilla JavaScript", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49013583", "title": "Capra, Cribl's Design System", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48473662", "title": "Port React Compiler to Rust", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46223882", "title": "Useful patterns for building HTML tools", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 786661376, "item_id": 49166336, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166336", "by": "hsn915", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I hate bloat and require lightness, so I use Preact.", "excerpt": "If you are going to advocate against something, the alternative you propose needs to be better in some important area, other than \"not that thing\". What is the thing you hate about react, and what is the thing you require in an alternative? I hate bloat and require lightness, so I use Preact. I also hate complexity and difficult to read stuff, so when I look at the proposal here, I don't see anything appealing, other", "context": "", "use_case": "UI library", "switched_from": "", "story": "You don't need React: creating a minimal UI library in Vanilla JavaScript"}, {"id": 784948721, "item_id": 49059295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49059295", "by": "christophilus", "date": "2026-07-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Building MPAs on Bun using Preact as the backend templating engine", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been working on a similar idea, but focusing on MPA and progressive enhancement. Building MPAs on Bun using Preact as the backend templating engine and focusing on a low-dependency stack. I used the gov.uk style guides as my inspiration. It\u2019s brought me back in time around 15 years, but the UX has grown on me. It\u2019s also quite fast, thanks to almost no client-side JS. No idea what I\u2019ll end up doing with it, thoug", "context": "", "use_case": "backend templating", "switched_from": "", "story": "Capra, Cribl's Design System"}, {"id": 775608865, "item_id": 48475554, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48475554", "by": "molf", "date": "2026-06-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We have a very performance-sensitive project that used preact (chosen for performance) via its compatibility layer, that we switched to React + React compiler.", "excerpt": "It really does work very well in practice. A few things really help: - Lints [1] that flag code that cannot be (correctly) optimised. Usually this is obscure code that is too smart for its own good. But the compiler leaves it alone and flags it for review, so most things just keep working. - The same lint rules flag code that violate the rules of hooks. These rules became more critical to follow: failure to do so can", "context": "", "use_case": "UI library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Port React Compiler to Rust"}, {"id": 740112081, "item_id": 46257005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46257005", "by": "christophilus", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I do something similar, but with Bun + Preact, since I love that stack.", "excerpt": "Nice. I do something similar, but with Bun + Preact, since I love that stack. I\u2019ve found it very productive after the hurdle of the initial project setup (in which I wasted time crafting an RPC layer, etc, because I wanted to.)", "context": "", "use_case": "building HTML tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Useful patterns for building HTML tools"}]}