Should you use sveltekit?

SvelteKit is a meta-framework (essentially a framework you use for routing, building, SSR, SEO, etc...) for svelte. It enables you to do a bunch of things you couldn't do with just svelte. Things like routing and SSR.

It was created by the same team who made svelte itself, and uses vite under the hood.

SvelteKit is essentially just a vite plugin which adds a lot of extra functionality.

Svelte is a javascript framework, used for making high performance web apps.

Like all javascript frameworks, it makes the process of making apps easier.

But svelte, instead of using a VirtualDOM (less efficient) compiles the code you write into native JS (much more efficient).

Svelte also focuses on developer experience, and it is generally very fun and easy to use. It follows a declarative model that goes as such:

<script>
    let text = "hi";
</script>

<!-- Grabs text from the javascript super easily -->
<p>{text}</p>

Instead of normal JS which is this:

<script>
    let text = "hi";

    document.getElementById("text").innerHTML = text; // This code must be ran every time to get the HTML to change
</script>

<!-- Will not update automatically, and you can't actually tell this is getting text from the JS unless you look at the JS itself -->
<p id="text"></p>

As you can see, svelte is much easier and simpler.

As of now, SvelteKit is in release candidate phase which means there will be less breaking changes.

This means while there will still be bugs, there will not be any more major breaking changes, which is re-assuring.

However, there will still be a few more minor breaking changes.

You can use svelte with several other module bundlers, such as rollup which was initially recommended but is now deprecated.

Vite, without SvelteKit, is another option as there is already an official plugin.

There exists several other plugins to integrate with other tools like webpack, but the main recommended one now aside from SvelteKit is vite.

What all of these have in common are that they are all used for SPA's (single page apps). SvelteKit on the other hand makes MPA's (multi page apps).

Multi page apps tend to preform better in search engines. The only difference is that in SvelteKit each web page is treated individually where as in a SPA all pages stem from one page and content is shown based on the URL.

Setting up routing without SvelteKit is quite tricky, and involves a lot of unofficial libraries.

If you are making a SPA then you are going to be able to use one of these other tools.

I would say you should be able to use it as it is nearing release, however be aware there will be a few bugs and missing documentation.

I think now is the best time to learn how to use it as it just entered release candidate phase, and is inching closer and closer to the final 1.0 release.

If you are creating a single page app, you can still use one of the alternatives mentioned above.

Overall, SvelteKit is an amazing framework and if you don't mind making a github issue here and there it works great.