React's Hidden Costs: The Case for Preact's Lightweight Alternative

React's 45KB bundle includes synthetic event delegation, legacy API support, and complex scheduling infrastructure that most modern applications never use. Preact achieves identical UI output in just 3KB by removing these features, translating to significantly faster load times and parse performance on real-world devices. As browser standards have matured, this 42KB difference increasingly represents a strategic choice rather than a technical compromise.