Svelte 5 runes vs React hooks — 6 months in

After six months of production Svelte 5, here is my honest take:

Pros: - $state / $derived are so much cleaner than useState/useMemo - Zero dependency overhead; the compiler does the work - Fine-grained reactivity with no re-render waterfalls

Cons: - Smaller ecosystem than React - Team onboarding requires unlearning hooks

Would I switch a React codebase? Not wholesale. Would I start new Svelte projects? Absolutely. Anyone else made the jump?