Comparisons #

WMR #

WMR by the Preact team provides a similar feature set, and Wite 2.0's support for Rollup's plugin interface is inspired by it.

WMR is mainly designed for Preact projects, and offers more integrated features such as pre-rendering. In terms of scope, it's closer to a Preact meta framework, with the same emphasis on compact size as Preact itself. If you are using Preact, WMR is likely going to offer a more fine-tuned experience.

@web/dev-server #

@web/dev-server (previously es-dev-server) is a great project and Wite 1.0's Koa-based server setup was inspired by it.

@web/dev-server is a bit lower-level in terms of scope. It does not provide official framework integrations, and requires manually setting up a Rollup configuration for the production build.

Overall, Wite is a more opinionated / higher-level tool that aims to provide a more out-of-the-box workflow. That said, the @web umbrella project contains many other excellent tools that may benefit Wite users as well.

Snowpack #

Snowpack was also a no-bundle native ESM dev server, very similar in scope to Wite. The project is no longer being maintained. The Snowpack team is now working on Astro, a static site builder powered by Wite. The Astro team is now an active player in the ecosystem, and they are helping to improve Wite.