alt Hacker NewsRunes got introduced with svelte 5 and they address some problems that really bite when your components become complex and just weren’t solvable in the old paradigm. I think svelte is still very ergonomic to use. Having to write $state() when declaring reactive variables is not a big deal and neither is writing $effect instead of $:. I think the real reason the hype has waned a little is a combination of time, LLMs really liking React and generally absorbing any spare attention.
YMMV, but I don't agree. I was building very complicated UI's with Svelte before runes (multiple layers of state, complex d3 + webgl visuals in the UI, etc.) and loved Svelte. Runes completely nuked the vanilla feel of Svelte, so I determined I may as well just use React. I know other people did the same (just look at the evolution of dev tools for Anthropic's research post-runes, or popular news rooms that once used Svelte but now don't).
The main issue I had with Svelte was building real full-stack applications, where Sveltekit itself certainly felt behind its peers, but that's unrelated to runes/signals.
It's certainly not a rare viewpoint, just click on any link about "svelte runes" to see people upset.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/sveltejs/comments/1crpj0r/svelte_5_... - https://www.reddit.com/r/sveltejs/comments/1htup7k/ive_been_...
You do raise a good point that LLMs make React much easier to adopt these days. Again, in my case the switch happened before I found LLMs effective for the sort of work I was doing, (but now it's a no-brainer to default to react).