Is Migrating to Svelte 5 Worth It?

[taishi55]

I'm hesitant to migrate my existing app to Svelte 5. After seeing many server-related issues or confusions, I don’t want to waste time on a troublesome migration. How has everyone's migration experience been? Any tips for those considering the switch? Thanks!

[YamiOdymel]

I didn’t migrate; instead, I started a brand-new project with Svelte 5, but it’s not worth it.

The $state feature is nice, but previously, you only needed to understand the Web to develop with Svelte 4. Now, you have to learn all of Svelte 5 to use it effectively.

I’m just tired of switching from Vue 2 → Vue 3 → Svelte 4 → Svelte 5.

I've decided to drop all the NPM-related nonsense and see if Alpine.js + HTMX with server-side rendering works better. The old-school approach never fails—it just works.

[webJose]

I personally enjoy Svelte v5 very much. I did very little Svelte v4 around 1 year before Svelte v5 became stable. I fell in love with Svelte v4 back then, and v5 is very enjoyable for me.

Having said that, I barely do any server-side stuff. My interest is pure CSR for MFE-powered applications using single-spa + Vite.

Yes, there's stuff you need to understand when migrating. Things change over time. It is inevitable. I agree: Svelte v4 just worked. It is amazing. But Yes to "it has things that don't scale well" as well.

In an ideal world, Svelte v5 would be an entirely different product with a separate timeline and maintenance. That way, one could have the two flavors actively maintained. I guess at this point that won't happen unless a third party forked the v4 version and rebranded it to be its own product.

I suppose that becuase v4 differs so much from v5, there's no simple answer to the question you pose: I think each individual will just have to venture into the migration and determine, on the go, whether it is worthwhile to continue or to simply stop.

Note, however, that it is not wise to stay in Svelte v4 as it is now a legacy framework. If you don't go for Svelte v5, you should still migrate to something else.