How MDN Web Docs moved from React to Lit
MDN’s move to web components: a two-second development startup, fewer dependencies and simpler maintenance.
…continuing with web components
Last year, our beloved MDN portal completely rewrote its frontend using web components.
In his article, Leo McArdle goes into detail about the work involved.
What they ended up with:
- ⚡️ The development environment starts in ~2 seconds instead of ~2 minutes
- 📦 Fewer dependencies: moving away from the heavyweight React stack
- 🧩 A move to native web components through Lit
- 🚀 A simpler build and development server, with less magic and faster debugging
- 🧼 Cleaner architecture: components closer to the platform
- 🔁 Easier component reuse across projects
- 📉 Less complexity in maintenance and updates
- 🌍 Improvements to performance and page loading