Changelog Interviews Vite documentary companion pod
Oct 8, 2025
Evan You, the visionary creator behind Vite and Vue, dives deep into Vite's intriguing origins and its journey from a Vue-specific tool to a robust framework-agnostic utility. He shares insights on the critical importance of open-source sustainability and discusses the establishment of VoidZero to ensure Vite's longevity. Evan also touches on the significance of community contributions and plans for VitePlus, a powerful new toolset that aims to streamline JavaScript development with innovative features.
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Prototype Sparked By Reproducing A Bug
- Evan built the first Vite prototype in 2019 to load Vue single-file components directly over the network without a build step.
- He returned to the idea in April 2020 and added HMR over native ESM, which made Vite a real project.
Native ESM Changed Dev Server Design
- Native ESM support in browsers unlocked on-demand dev server compilation without bundling.
- That browser capability was the crucial technical enabler for Vite's dev experience.
Parallel Projects Converged
- Vite and Snowpack started from different directions but converged in scope as both added dev server and dependency handling.
- Vite focused on dev server with on-demand transpilation while Snowpack emphasized dependency pre-conversion to ESM.