Svelte

Svelte compiles your components into plain JavaScript at build time, with no virtual DOM and only a small runtime. You write components that look like HTML with superpowers, and the compiler turns them into lean, fast code.

MIT licensed. SvelteKit, the full-stack framework built on Svelte, handles routing and server rendering, and deploys through adapters for Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, Node or plain static hosting. Svelte 5 replaced the old reactivity model with runes ($state, $derived), so tutorials from before late 2024 use syntax you'll need to translate.

Fully free. No paid tier, no enterprise edition, no hosted product. Deploy anywhere.

The catch: the ecosystem is smaller than React's. If you need a specific UI component library, auth wrapper, or enterprise integration, React probably has 10 options where Svelte has 2. The job market is thinner too, which means fewer answers out there when you're stuck.