Svelte Radio

Jeppe hosts with Brittany. Guests: Patak (Matias Capeletto, Vite core team) and Zeu Capua (zeu.dev, software engineer, Svelte ambassador).

What is npmx?

A fast, open-source browser for the npm registry. It consumes the npmjs REST API and adds a better UI and more useful data on top. Started by Daniel Roe (Nuxt lead) ~40 days before recording. Patak joined as co-steward after seeing a two-day prototype.

Features beyond npmjs.com

• ESM vs CJS detection per package
• Bundle size and install size
• Color-coded dependency freshness (yellow = patch behind, red = major behind)
• e18e module replacement warnings when a lighter modern alternative exists
• Package claiming via UI (available locally if you fork the repo)
• Planned: publishing and package management flows

Svelte is #1

Most liked package on npmx at time of recording: Svelte (173), Nuxt (101), Vite (96).

Picks

• Zeu: Hypermedia Systems by Carson Gross. Free online at hypermedia.systems.
• Brittany: Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Comedy about inheriting a villain business.
• Patak: The community blog posts from the npmx launch. Read them if you need a reminder that open source can still be fun.
• Jeppe: Cordless hot glue guns. 10 seconds to heat up, fixes everything.

Hot takes

• Zeu: Stop putting "blue" or "sky" in AT Proto app names. The protocol needs to grow beyond Blue Sky.
• Patak: He's stopped coding in open source. Focusing on people, calls, community. Open source needs more non-coders.

Links

• npmx Alpha Launch Blog Post
• npmx.dev
• npmx GitHub
• npmx Discord
• npmx Open Collective
• Zeu Capua / @zeu.dev on Blue Sky
• Eurosky
• Open Source Pledge
• Hypermedia Systems

Kev and Jeppe, discuss the cold weather in Denmark and Sweden compared to Hawaii. They highlight that "Svelte Radio" has ranked number 13 (effectively number 12) in the podcast section of the State of JS 2025 survey, placing them among the "mainstream" podcasts and slightly increasing the pressure to produce relevant content.

State of JS: Frameworks
The hosts analyze the survey results for JavaScript frameworks:

• Svelte: Usage increased slightly to 27% (up from 26%). It maintains the highest interest rating for the sixth consecutive year, though interest is slightly declining—a trend seen across most frameworks. Satisfaction remains high at number two (86%), just behind Solid.
• React: Continues to dominate with 70 million weekly downloads, but interest and satisfaction are declining. The hosts discuss the complexity of React Server Components (RSC) and the risks of framework developers losing touch with practical usage ("dogfooding").
• Solid: Rising in interest and taking the number one spot for satisfaction.
• HTMX: Saw a significant drop in interest, described as a "meme" that has cooled down.
• Web Components: Chatter is growing (e.g., Lit), but usage remains relatively low compared to the push from DevRel teams.

State of JS: Meta-Frameworks

• Next.js: Leads usage significantly at 59% but has low satisfaction, barely beating out Gatsby.
• Astro: Growing rapidly (27% usage) and ranked number one in satisfaction. Its strength lies in supporting multiple frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte).
• SvelteKit: Ranked number two in satisfaction. Interest is declining, likely due to the framework maturing.
• TanStack Start: Noted as a popular write-in option and a strong new alternative to Next.js.
• Analog: Mentioned as an Angular meta-framework powered by Vite.

Libraries & Developer Tools

• The hosts discuss various libraries and tools featured in the survey:
• Validation: Zod is the most used, but Valibot is recommended as a smaller, tree-shakable alternative. Both libraries support the new "Standard Schema" initiative.
• Linting: Oxlint is highlighted as a much faster, Rust-based alternative to ESLint.
• Package Management: The tool ni is recommended for running package manager commands (install, run scripts) agnostically without needing to remember if a project uses npm, yarn, or pnpm.
• Date Libraries: Day.js, date-fns, and Luxon remain popular. The hosts anticipate the upcoming JavaScript Temporal API may eventually replace these.
• jQuery: A new version was released that drops Internet Explorer 11 support and migrates to ES modules.

Picks & Actionable Items
The hosts conclude with their picks for the week:

• Kev's Pick: The TV show "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (Game of Thrones universe).
• Jeppes's Pick: npmx.dev, a modern, interactive interface for the NPM registry that includes vulnerability alerts and dependency graphs.

Actionable Items:

• Try ni: Use the ni CLI tool to handle package manager commands automatically across different projects.
• Contribute to npmx.dev: The project is looking for contributors. It is described as a friendly community for those wanting to get into open source.
• Avoid AI Spam PRs: If contributing to npmx.dev or other projects, ensure contributions are genuine and not low-effort, AI-generated pull requests.

Sorry about Jeppe's audio in this one, he accidentally picked the wrong microphone during recording and there's not much we can do about it :(

The gang kicks back for their first episode of the new year, catching up on holidays before diving into AI and vibe coding. Kevin talks bout a gym tracking app he built almost entirely with LLMs. 

They cover updates to the Svelte Society website (job board, sponsorships, newsletter), debate whether Mozilla/Firefox can survive by pivoting to AI, and wrap with hot takes: Kevin warns devs to learn AI tools or risk obsolescence, Brittney shares Claude's take that TypeScript's type system has become its own technical debt, and Jeppe champions the glory of two ultra-wide curved monitors.

In this episode of Svelte Radio, we welcome Jeppe as a new permanent host and sit down with Paolo Ricciuti, Svelte maintainer and Senior Software Developer at Mainmatter, to dive deep into Svelte custom renderers. Paolo walks us through how custom renderers work (using React's approach with React DOM, Ink, and React Native as context), explains the technical challenges of bringing this capability to Svelte 5—including the template element trick, CSP issues, and runtime modifications—and shares his proof-of-concept work enabling Svelte to render to non-DOM targets like terminals and native mobile apps via Lynx.js. The discussion touches on potential use cases like Threlte for 3D graphics, the importance of this feature for Svelte adoption, and wraps up with picks including Screen Studio, TMCP, and Advent of Svelte.

Guest

• Paolo Ricciuti — Svelte maintainer and ambassador, Senior Software Developer at Mainmatter

New Host

• Jeppe joins as a permanent co-host!

Topics Discussed

Custom Renderers Overview

• Svelte Custom Renderers website
• What custom renderers are and why they matter
• How React separates React (the diffing library) from React DOM (the renderer)
• Examples of React custom renderers: 
  • Ink — React for terminal/CLI applications
  • React Native — React for iOS/Android native apps
  • Remotion — React for programmatic video creation
  • React PDF renderer for generating documents

Svelte's Technical Approach

• How Svelte 5 uses the

Guest
Ilja - Berlin-based developer specializing in building websites and data visualizations for NGOs. Svelte Ambassador.

Topics Discussed

• Working with NGOs vs. traditional businesses
• Budget constraints and project-based funding
• The AfroZensus project
• Svelte 5 migration
• Berlin Svelte Meetup announcement

Berlin Svelte Meetup

• Date: December 9th (Tuesday)
• Venue: Datawrapper's office in Berlin
• Talks: Peter from XYFlow presenting SvelteFlow, plus more
• Registration: https://svelte-berlin.de/

Links Mentioned

Tools & Libraries

• svelte-render-scan (Visual debugging tool by Stanislav Khromov): https://github.com/khromov/svelte-render-scan
• svelte-inspect-value (Value inspector component): https://github.com/ampled/svelte-inspect-value
• SvelteFlow (Node-based UI library): https://svelteflow.dev/
• Friendly Captcha (GDPR-compliant captcha): https://friendlycaptcha.com/
• SparklePost (Native-feeling PWA demo): https://sparklepost.vercel.app/
• @component documentation: https://svelte.dev/docs/svelte/basic-markup

Companies & Organizations

• Datawrapper: https://www.datawrapper.de/
• GitButler: https://gitbutler.com/
• XYFlow: https://xyflow.com/

Projects

• Academic Freedom Index: https://academic-freedom-index.net/
• AfroZensus: https://afrozensus.de/
• AfroZensus Dashboard: https://data.afrozensus.de/

Courses

• Practical Accessibility by Sara Soueidan: https://practical-accessibility.today/

Unpopular Opinions

• Kevin: More people should self-host
• Brittney: Lost free Copilot access
• Antony: Store states, not effects
• Ilya: JSDoc is superior to TypeScript

Picks

• Kevin: SparklePost, "You can just do things", The Hierarchy book series by James Islington
• Brittney: @component documentation
• Antony: Friendly Captcha
• Ilya: svelte-render-scan, svelte-inspect-value, Practical Accessibility course

In this episode, Stanislav Khromov joins the Svelte Radio team to discuss his work on Svelte Bench, a

benchmarking tool that scientifically measures how well different LLMs understand and write Svelte 5 code.

The conversation explores the challenges of AI-assisted coding with Svelte 5, the development of the official

Svelte MCP (Model Context Protocol) that provides LLMs with documentation and auto-fixing capabilities, and

the surprising performance differences between major AI providers. Stanislav also shares insights on working

with AI tools, the future of local models, and the economics of AI coding assistants.

Notes

• Stanislav Khromov
• Svelte Bench
  • GitHub
• Svelte MCP
• Anthropic Spending VC Money

Unpopular Opinions

• Kevin: Serverless is overrated
• Stanislav: OpenAI has the worst models of the big three
• Antony: Heat Pumps are bad
  • Technology Connections
  • Tech Ingredients

Picks

• Kevin: Kasai Hibachi Grill (now tested, and can confirm, it is PENG!)
  Stanislav: Ball x Pit
  Antony: Saunas By the Sea

In this episode of Svelte Radio, Ken Kunz joins the hosts to discuss his journey with Svelte, from discovering it

through Rich Harris's "Rethinking Reactivity" talk to building complex financial applications. Ken shares his

experience working on Trading Strategy, a decentralized finance platform, and the challenges of implementing

sophisticated charting solutions.

The conversation also covers Ken's memorable Svelte Summit talk where he

recreated the Macrodata Refinement interface from the TV show Severance, complete with props and staying in

character throughout. The episode touches on testing philosophies, state management with his library Svelte-

FSM, and the newly launched Svelte Society Chicago chapter.

Notes

• Trading Strategy
• LayerChart
• TradingView Lightweight Chart
• xstate
• svelte-fsm
  • Talk
• Runed
• Macrodata Refinement Talk
  • GitHub Repo
  • Website
• Bert B's Svelte Summit Talk
• Svelte Chicago

Picks

• Kevin: Zen Browser
  • Zed
  • Zod
• Antony: n8n
  • Active Pieces
• Brittney: Tab Groups!
• Ken: Rock Climbing!
  • Brene Brown

Summary

In this episode of Svelt Radio, the hosts welcome Jeppe Reinhold from Chromatic to discuss the dramatic

improvements in Storybook's Svelte integration. Jeppe shares how a critical video by Brittany struggling with

Storybook setup sparked a complete overhaul of the Svelte experience, leading to better collaboration with the

Svelte core team and significant enhancements in functionality. 

The conversation covers new features like Svelte

CSF for writing stories in native Svelte syntax, improved testing capabilities, support for async components, and

upcoming features in Storybook 10. The team also discusses the philosophy behind component-driven

development, the challenges of integrating with remote functions, and Storybook's future direction including AI

support and better theming capabilities.

Links

• Storybook
  • Storybook Svelte Guide
• addon-svelte-csf

Unpopular Opinions

• Antony: Svelte is an independent project! Don’t throw it in the bin
• Jeppe: I like GANTT charts

Picks

• Antony: Castles!
• Brittney: Spain!
• Jeppe: Tuple

Summary

In this episode, Simon Holthausen from the Svelte team joins to discuss remote functions and async Svelte, two

experimental features that are changing how developers interact with data in SvelteKit applications. Remote

functions offer a new RPC-like approach that provides better type safety, more granular data loading, and

improved developer experience compared to traditional load functions and form actions. The conversation

covers the technical implementation, design decisions, and future possibilities including caching, streaming, and

integration with Svelte's upcoming resource API. Simon also explains how async Svelte enables top-level await

in components with coordinated loading boundaries, making asynchronous work much easier to manage in both

SSR and SPA contexts.

Links

• Remote Functions Documentation
• Remote Functions Video by Simon
• Follow-up Video by Simon

Picks

• Simon: Elgato Wave Microphone
• Kevin: CalDigit Thunderbolt 5 Dock TS5 Plus

Summary
We're putting the band back together. Svelte Radio is officially back. This first episode is a bit of catch-up. Not a ton of Svelte chatter. Look forward to many fun and interesting episodes.

Next week we talk with Simon about Remote Functions. Don't miss it!

Show Notes

• Introducing SvelteKit Remote Functions, by Simon Holthausen
• SvelteKit Remote Functions tips: Auth guards, managing asynchronous, query.batch
• Svelte Bench
• Tembo

Hot takes

• Kevin: AI generates a lot of Workslop if you're not careful.
• Antony: Find something common and differentiate
• Brittney: Cats are better than dogs.

Picks

• Kevin: Slow Horses
• Brittney: Cate Cafés
• Antony: Gary's Economics