Every frontend framework solves the same problem: sync state ↔ DOM. The difference is how they do it — and that difference determines whether your app runs at 60fps or turns into a slideshow.
State Change
↓
Create new VNode tree (allocate millions of objects)
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Diff against old tree (compare every single node)
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Generate patch list
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Apply patches to real DOM
Cost: O(n) where n = total components in tree
React allocates a full VNode tree on EVERY state update. For a grid with 1,000 cells, that's 1,000 objects created, 1,000 comparisons, every single render. For a million cells — impossible.
Even Solid, which claims fine-grained reactivity, still wraps everything in a runtime that has overhead. Signals in Solid still go through a VDOM-like layer for components.
State Change
↓
Proxy trap fires
↓
Mark component as dirty
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Schedule re-render
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Re-run component render function
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Diff VNodes
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Patch DOM
Cost: O(n) per re-render + proxy overhead
Vue's proxy system means every property access goes through a JavaScript Proxy — that's overhead on every single read. And when a component re-renders, the ENTIRE component's VNode tree is recreated and diffed.
State Change
↓
Zone.js patches all async APIs
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Trigger change detection on whole tree
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Walk component tree, check each binding
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Update changed bindings
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Run Angular-specific diffing
Cost: O(n) with every async operation, even if nothing changed
Angular runs change detection on the ENTIRE app every time ANY async thing happens — setTimeout, click, fetch, everything. And you can't escape it without OnPush + manual optimization.
State Change
↓
Compiler-generated update code runs
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Direct DOM updates
Svelte is closer to Dominator — it's compiled, not runtime. But Svelte's compiler still generates code that updates at the component level, not the individual DOM node level. Dirty a variable in Svelte and the whole component's DOM section gets patched.
Dominator doesn't have a "runtime framework" in the traditional sense. Instead:
.dnr Template
↓
PARSER → AST
↓
SSA IR → Linear instruction list (create, attr, event, text, expr, append, each)
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OPTIMIZER → DCE, constant folding
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CODEGEN → TypeScript with effect() bindings
↓
VITE → Served as native ES module
The output is raw JavaScript that directly creates and manipulates DOM nodes. No framework runtime, no VNode objects, no diffing engine.
counter.set(5)
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Notifies subscribers
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effect() re-runs
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el.textContent = '5'
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DOM updated (1 property write)
Zero indirection. No VNode creation, no diff, no patch queue, no component reconciliation.
| Framework | Update Cost | 100 Cells | 10,000 Cells | 1,000,000 Cells |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| React | O(n) | 100 ops | 10,000 ops | 1,000,000 ops ✗ |
| Vue | O(n) | 100 ops | 10,000 ops | 1,000,000 ops ✗ |
| Angular | O(n) | 100 ops | 10,000 ops | 1,000,000 ops ✗ |
| Svelte | O(m)* | Varies | Varies | Varies ✗ |
| Dominator | O(1) | 1 op | 1 op | 1 op ✓ |
*Svelte: O(m) where m = component boundary size
When you update ONE cell value in the stress-million-cells-grid:
- React: Would diff ALL 1M virtual nodes to figure out which one changed
- Dominator: The
effect()that reads that specific signal re-runs and sets one CSS property. Done.
Dominator never creates a VNode at runtime. The compiler generates code that calls document.createElement() directly. There is no intermediate representation between your state and the DOM.
Result: Zero GC pressure from framework allocations. Zero comparison overhead. Zero patch logic.
Compare:
// React (runtime):
const vnode = h('div', { className: 'foo' }, 'hello');
// This VNode object must be created, compared, and GC'd
// Dominator (compiled):
const el = document.createElement('div');
el.className = 'foo';
el.textContent = 'hello';
// Direct DOM. No objects to GC.Each dynamic binding compiles to its OWN effect():
// Template: <div style:transform={n.transform} style:backgroundColor={n.color} />
// Compiled:
effect(() => { el.style.transform = n.transform; }); // subscribes to n.transform
effect(() => { el.style.backgroundColor = n.color; }); // subscribes to n.colorIf n.transform changes but n.color doesn't — only ONE effect re-runs. Just ONE style property write.
In React, changing n.transform would re-render the ENTIRE parent component, create a new VNode tree for EVERYTHING, diff everything, and then finally apply just the transform change.
batch(() => {
signal1.set(a);
signal2.set(b);
signal3.set(c);
сигнал4.set(d);
// Nothing happens yet
});
// queueMicrotask fires:
// signal1's effects run
// signal2's effects run
// signal3's effects run
// signal4's effects run
// DOM is now consistent: 1 frame, 1 layoutAll signal mutations within a batch() are deferred to a single queueMicrotask. The browser only does ONE layout calculation, no matter how many signals changed.
In the stress test, 3000 random cell updates all happen inside batch(). The browser sees ONE coherent DOM write, not 3000 separate ones.
Most frameworks ship a runtime (ReactDOM: ~130KB, Vue: ~33KB, Angular: ~200KB+). This runtime must be downloaded, parsed, and executed before anything works.
Dominator's "runtime" is:
signal.ts: 63 lineseffect.ts: 11 lines (same file)batch.ts: 18 linesreconcile.ts: 55 lines
That's it. Everything else is generated code that calls native DOM APIs directly. No framework to boot up. No VDOM library to initialize.
This isn't theory — it's running code.
What it does:
- 1,000 × 1,000 = 1,000,000 logical cells
- Virtual scrolling renders ~5,000 visible cells at a time
- 3,000 random cell updates EVERY frame (60fps)
- Real-time FPS counter, render time, DOM node count
- Keyboard navigation, cell selection, undo stack
Try doing this in React:
- Create 10,000 components (React already struggles here — try it)
- Update 3,000 of them every 16ms
- Keep 60fps
- It will not work. React's VDOM diff of 10k+ nodes in 16ms is physically impossible.
Dominator does it effortlessly because:
- Each cell has ~3
effect()subscriptions (class, background, text) - Updating a cell = 3 direct DOM property writes
- No tree traversal, no object allocation, no diffing
batch()coalesces all 9000+ signal notifications (3000 cells × 3 effects) into one microtask
Dominator isn't really a framework. It's a compiler that turns templates into optimized DOM manipulation code. The output is closer to hand-written vanilla JS than anything React-like.
React app: 100KB framework + your code
Svelte app: ~10KB framework-runtime + compiled code
Dominator: ~2KB runtime + compiled code (mostly document.createElement calls)
Smaller bundle, faster execution, less memory, no GC pauses.
| React/Vue/Angular | Dominator | |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering | Create VNodes → Diff → Patch | Direct DOM via compiled code |
| Update Cost | O(n) entire tree | O(1) per signal |
| Memory | VNode objects created & GC'd every render | Zero framework allocations |
| Bundle Size | 30KB–200KB+ runtime | ~2KB runtime |
| 1M Cell Grid | Impossible (< 1fps) | Smooth 60fps |
| Learning Curve | Complex ecosystem | HTML + JS signals |
| Build Output | Framework runtime + app code | Raw DOM calls |
Dominator is the best because it does the least. No diffing. No VDOM. No change detection. No proxy traps. Just signals → effects → DOM, with nothing in between.
When your competitor spends 16ms comparing 10,000 virtual nodes and you spend 0.01ms writing one CSS property — you win. Every time.