Vite (pronounced /vit/, French for "quick") is a modern frontend build tool that significantly improves the developer experience. It prioritizes speed and efficiency, aiming to provide a faster development environment for web applications.

Unlike traditional bundlers that process your entire application during startup, Vite leverages native ES modules (ESM) during development. This means that as your application grows, your development server startup time remains consistently fast. It also enables near-instant Hot Module Replacement (HMR), allowing you to see changes reflected in your browser almost immediately without a full page reload.

Vite is designed to be framework-agnostic, meaning it works seamlessly with popular frameworks like Vue, React, Preact, and vanilla JavaScript. Its pluggable architecture allows for easy integration with various plugins and tools, making it a versatile choice for a wide range of frontend projects. For production, Vite utilizes Rollup for optimized bundling, ensuring efficient and performant output.