Svelte Summit 2025

Ok, off of the back of an absolutely banger of a post from Ilja, I’m now compelled to write about my own experience at Svelte Summit. I initially drafted this post on the 13th, it’s now the 25th (this post has been sat in my drafts all this time!), so as those memories are fading fast I should try get down as much as I can! These are my notes and experiences, this isn’t a rundown of the talks! Although, I will note some of the most impactful and entertaining ones!

I’m going to have to come back to this, add more images etc, for now, I don’t want to stash this in Git as that where all good unfinished stuff goes to die for me! 😅 Instead, I’m going to add what I can now! If this seems disjointed and muddled, that’s because it is, as I’ve written it over three weeks now 🥲

Self funded

Attending the 2022 Svelte Summit was an absolute joy! As soon as the next in person Svelte Summit was announced for 2025 I bought an early bird ticket, booked my flights and hotel then marked the time off in my calendar! It didn’t even occur to me that I should submit a talk! 😂 This wasn’t something I was going to miss!

As the heading suggests I also want to mention that although there are sponsors for Svelte Summit I know that conferences are not cheap to make happen! I have also seen discourse around the cost of watching the talks, really passive aggressive comments around Svelte being OSS so why pay to watch the talks etc. HAVE YOU SEEN THE PRICE OF A VITECONF TICKET?

To these people, stop bitching about it! The conf was run at a loss! The videos are a way to claw back some of this! If you want to support further Svelte Summits, cough up the money to watch the videos, that will help fund the next one! There are certain local Svelte meetup’s where you will be able to watch some of the talks OR wait for them to be released in due course.

The talks

There’s very little I missed from the talks, all top quality talks! Most notable, for me, were…

Dominik G’s talk on testing patterns, he gave an overview of using Vitest workspaces to split your client and server tests! I’m using these patterns now and they’re working very well!

Macrodata Refinement with Svelte with Ken Kunz (talk in the theme of severance) was a masterclass in using Svelte to create the UI seen in severance. You didn’t even know what severance (the TV show) was! Thoroughly entertaining!

Bert’s talk! If you were not at the Svelte 2022 summit, you were not prepared for the energy Bert brings to his talks! Energy, BUT with a real story behind it!

The venue

The aesthetics of the venue where great! Not some sterile white partition walled space where you feel like your back in the office waiting to hear about Q2 performance, but an actual entertainment space in the heart of Barcelona!

People do like to shit on things they’re not taking part in! There were comments online about the appearance of the venue. To these people I invite them to help organise ANY event where they are on a tight budget and have to meet the needs of many individuals!

Kev and the rest of the team did an absolutely fantastic job! Also one thing to note is that Kev was an image of serenity compared to the last 2022 event where he was mostly bright red running around like a madman who looked in desperate need of a hug! 😂

Svelte has a marketing problem

So, Svelte is used in many places, not where there’s data viz needed like with the New Your Times, The FT, Bloomberg, Der Spiegel but other companies that have decided to use Svelte for their websites like Ashley Furniture (2nd largest furniture website in the world) and Ikea, which I guess is the largest?? Also Stack Overflow and Apple music!

Why is there not more visibility about Svelte, I know there’s the survey information (totally blanking on the name of it) and there are serious companies doing serious things with Svelte.

Is it that we’re not as shouty about it? Is it because we actively avoid hype?

I think there were at least two discussions Kevin had relating to the marketing of Svelte, I brought it and and when I mentioned it to him he also mentioned that he literally just had a conversation with someone else on the same subject, he immediately went off to have a conversation about it (with someone else??). I’m now in a Discord channel discussing how we improve this 😅

What I will say is this. You use Svelte to solve a problem? Tell others about it, share it online so other can understand your problem, blog it, share it on social media, etc! I know these things take time out of your day, but if that Bluesky post or your blog post helps just one person, do you think that’s worth the effort? I do! That’s why I’ve been adding random shit to this site since I started web dev!

The business case for Svelte

So, just pondering the name drops I mentioned for companies that use Svelte, the thing is, the decision makers for the technologies used, probably don’t care about Svelte, they are concerned with outcomes!

A talk given by Chris Ellis (who I now work with!) coming up to three years ago now is still something I reference when speaking with others about “selling” Svelte to management/stakeholders/business owners.

The upshot? Essentially it’s “faster outcomes” businesses don’t really care what stack you use, they care about getting features to market.

Anyways! This tangent is done with!

These are my people

Such a diverse group of people from so many places around the world! Any discussion I had I would discover something new and intriguing! Andy the guy who works at the UN! Mentioned he loved the feel of Svelte but still works very much in PHP! Looking forward to seeing the UN adopting Svelte!

Sonny and AK from Ashley, where I found out they use my ironically badly named SEO head component Svead 🤯

Ermeen and Ilja who were both asking questions about starting their local event for Svelte where I was glad to share some of the knowledge I’ve picked up over the years! (like I’m some sort of Svelte events expert 😂 I’m not, but, was happy to share)

Jeppe Reinhold, who I’d never met in person and was totally blown away by his work on Stroybook with Svelte.

Reconnecting with friends I had made at the last in person summit! Making new friends and hanging out after the after party is always the best part of these events!

It felt very much like coming home, I could strike up a conversation with anyone and they’d be friendly and open to chat! The venue added very much to the vibe!

The intentionally long breaks between sessions allowed for a lot of chatting and catching up!

The day 1 after party, after party

After the after party on the first night, there were roughly 80 of us looking for somewhere to get some food and drinks. Chaos ensued! A line of people snaking through the streets of barcelona at around 22:00 in the evening 😅

People were following Bert like he’s some pied piper of Svelte devs! 🤣

We split into two groups not from intention, just waiting around for others to cross roads etc! Shout out to Morgan for some quick thinking and frantic searching to find a place that would accommodate us! Turned out to be a group of around 20 people in one place! We stayed for a drink then went on to find the other group!

I met with Ermeen on my way back to where I thought the other group were, (turns out, that the directions I was following were back to my hotel which I didn’t even clock until the morning 😅) Ermeen was sat outside the bar and pointed to inside where the rest of the gang were!

We were brought back together!

The day 2 after party, after party

There was cheesecake Sonny doing his best to convince the staff at Piba to let 20 plus more people in!

There were another group at somewhere else I can’t remember!

The Scott knot

I feel I have to bring this up! I tie a shoelace that will not come undone easily! It’s my patented “Scott knot” as referred to my nephews! I was taught this specific type of knot over 20 years ago by a shoe shine! 😅

I’m quite embarrassed to admit but I can’t remember who’s shoes I tied! I do remember recounting the story “of the knot” and instructing the shoes wearer on how to tie the knot!

I need to know 1. who’s shoes I tied 2. if they recommend the “Scott knot” to others. 3. do they remember how to tie the knot?

It was Antony (My Svelte London co founder), I tied Antony’s shoelaces for him! I thought this story was going to be more interesting than it actually was 😂 I thought I forgot a key bonding moment! Turns out it’s the guy I see (almost) monthly for Svelte London events!

AIAIo, no!

Another tangent!

Off of the back of a very lengthy section in Ilja’s post I am now going to add my own lengthy take! If you meet me in person, and we speak about AI, (let’s face it, it’s very hard not to talk about it these days!), you will probably get the impression that I’m a bit of a sceptic, that I loathe using it. The fact of the matter is (for now) there’s no escaping it! I do wholeheartedly agree with Ilja’s comments about it, currently companies are burning through VC money like there’s no tomorrow (absolutely to the detriment of tomorrow too!). I know these pricing models are unsustainable, it costs way more to make a query than what is being charged!

I’m not going to get into this discussion here though, BUT! THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE WRITING ABOUT THIS WHICH IS MIND BOGGLING TO ME! Please check out betteroffline.com for more information, there’s a podcast and newsletter that I highly recommend!

Closing

So, this is more of a vague recollection from my point of view of what happened over those two days! I thoroughly enjoyed it all and was very sad to leave!

Can’t wait for the next in person Svelte Summit! I’m sure it will be just as enjoyable as this one was! 🎉