head to head · open source
react vs vite
react has 251,953 GitHub stars, 51,687 forks, 1,377 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vite has 83,723 stars, 9,134 forks, 767 open issues and last shipped yesterday. react leads on adoption by 201% (251,953 vs 83,723 stars). react is written in JavaScript under MIT; vite is written in TypeScript under MIT. react has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, vite 11%. react was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (frontend), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| react | vite | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 252K | ★ 84K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 52K | ⑂ 9.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick react if
- You weight community size — 252K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick vite if
- You want the vite feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and vite fits your workflow better
About react
React · React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. Declarative: React makes it painless to create interactive UIs. Design simple views for each state in your application, and React will efficiently update and render just the right components when your data changes. Declarative views make your code more predictable, simpler to understand, and easier to debug. Component Based: Build encapsulated components that manage their own state, then compose them to make complex UIs. Since component logic is written in JavaScript instead of templates, you can easily pass rich data through your app and…
read the full react overview →
About vite
Vite ⚡ Next Generation Frontend Tooling 💡 Instant Server Start ⚡️ Lightning Fast HMR 🛠️ Rich Features 📦 Optimized Build 🔩 Universal Plugin Interface 🔑 Fully Typed APIs Vite (French word for "quick", pronounced /viːt/ , like "veet") is a build tool that aims to provide a faster and leaner development experience for modern web projects. It consists of two major parts: A dev server that provides rich feature enhancements over native ES modules, for example extremely fast Hot Module Replacement (HMR). A build command that bundles your code with Rolldown, pre configured to output highly optimized static assets…
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Frequently asked questions
Is react or vite more popular?
react has 251,953 GitHub stars and vite has 83,723. react has the larger community by that measure.
Are react and vite free?
Both are open source. react is licensed under MIT and vite under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between react and vite?
react is written in JavaScript and vite in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, react or vite?
Choose react if you want the larger community (251,953 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose vite if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.