Ac­cel­er­at­ing Frontend Builds with Vite

At F7, we care deeply about working with the right tools. We’re always looking to modernize our tech stack, simplify our workflows, and build more efficiently. Recently, we made a big improvement to our frontend setup by switching to Vite. The speed gains have been huge.

Vite didn’t just make our builds faster. It made our entire development experience cleaner, leaner, and easier to work with.

Why We Chose Vite

Vite, pronounced "veet" and meaning “quick” in French, is a modern frontend build tool designed around native ES modules. In practice, that makes it extremely fast, especially during development.

But speed was only part of the appeal. Vite comes with sensible defaults and built-in support for common tools that are used every day in the modern web development ecosystem. TypeScript, JSX, React, Vue, and other modern features just work out of the box. There’s no need for heavy configuration or custom setups.

Here’s what stood out to us right away:

• Instant startup in development
• Fast rebuilds with native ESM and smart caching
• Support for modern frameworks and syntax with zero config
• A clean, minimal setup that stays out of the way
• A plugin-friendly architecture that adapts to any project

What Got Better for Us

Since moving to Vite, we’ve seen noticeable improvements in both development and deployment.

• Build times are 3 to 10 times faster depending on the project

• Our configuration files are smaller and easier to understand

• We reduced the number of dependencies we maintain

• Custom modules and third-party libraries require no hacks or special handling

Working with our frontend code feels faster and less fragile. It’s easier to debug, test, and ship.

Built for Ex­tend­ab­il­ity

One of the biggest reasons Vite is such a good fit for us is its extendability. The API is lightweight and flexible, which makes it a natural match for Typo3 and the way we work across projects.

We now have the freedom to build custom plugins and workflows that fit perfectly into our environment. Whether it's optimizing how assets are handled, automating parts of the CMS integration, or building internal tooling, Vite gives us the structure to do it cleanly.

It opens up a ton of possibilities for expanding and improving our frontend ecosystem.

A Foundation for the Future

Switching to Vite wasn’t just about improving build speeds. It was about laying the groundwork for a more modern, maintainable, and scalable frontend stack.

Our projects are now faster to build, easier to work with, and more aligned with current best practices. The developer experience has improved, the codebase is lighter, and the path forward is a lot clearer.

And the best part is, we’re just getting started.