Earlier this month, I had the chance to attend the Svelte Summit Spring 2025 in sunny Barcelona. As someone relatively new to frontend development - and even newer to in-person dev conferences - the summit provided an excellent opportunity to connect with fellow developers. Windmill was proud to be one of the event sponsors, and for me, it was a powerful way to connect our work to the larger Svelte ecosystem.
Why we chose Svelte at Windmill
At Windmill, our frontend is built with Svelte, and there's a clear reason why: it's the most developer-friendly and productive framework we've found - especially for those of us with a backend-first mindset. Svelte lets us move fast, iterate on ideas directly in the app, and avoid a lot of the boilerplate you typically find in other frameworks.
This philosophy of simplicity was echoed by Rich Harris himself during the summit:
"I don't care about the framework; I just want to make people's lives easier."
For example, among the crowd was a team from Radio France - the largest public radio platform in France. Remarkably, they had migrated their entire website to Svelte four years ago, even though the project was still in its early stages at the time. Why take such a risk?
"We gathered three equally skilled dev teams and had them work on the same project using Vue, React, and Svelte. After four weeks, the Svelte team had delivered three times more features, achieving this with only half the amount of code." said Yann.
This sentiment captures the promise at the heart of the Svelte community. And from everything I saw and heard, Svelte is living up to that promise.
So it made total sense for us to sponsor the Svelte Summit. It was a way of giving back to a community that builds and maintains a tool we love using every day.
The event vibe: intimate, friendly, fun
The event itself was cozy - think around a hundred attendees - and held in a beautiful venue that made the most of Barcelona's May sunshine. Over the course of two days (May 8–9), the space was packed but never overwhelming. There was enough room for spontaneous chats, hallway conversations, and of course, a lot of geeking out over JavaScript and animations.
If I had to sum up the crowd in one word, it would be passionate. Everyone was there because they love Svelte, not because they had to be (many were there at their own expense). One attendee had even flown in all the way from Taiwan just to be part of it.
Talks that dazzled like stage shows
I went in expecting technical walkthroughs and code-heavy demos. Instead, what I experienced was a series of engaging and well-rehearsed presentations, much like the inspiring talks you'd find at TED conferences. From a deep dive into the Severance universe that ignited a full room's love of animation, to the tallest developer in the room unexpectedly becoming the evening's MC, there was never a dull moment.
Topics ranged from SSR strategies and building 3D animations with Svelte, to how folks are using it to power entire component libraries. Most of the sessions were less about deeply technical rabbit holes and more about sharing ideas, exploring creative directions, and inspiring new uses of the framework.
Networking, hiring and community
The breaks between sessions were just as valuable. The venue layout encouraged mingling, the food was great, and you could really feel the community spirit. Conversations flowed naturally - about code, design, performance hacks, or just life. By day two, the after-effects of the previous night's party were showing on a few faces, but the mood stayed light, engaged, and welcoming.
One thing I noticed: the crowd skewed senior. I didn't meet any junior devs. Most folks were either experienced engineers or indie creators. That made it a less ideal venue for active recruiting, but still a great spot for long-term relationship-building.
Hiring Svelte devs is still tricky. Many developers love it, but few get to use it in their day jobs. "Do you use Svelte at work?" - "I wish." - was a common refrain. The migration stories I heard were all positive, though. It's clear that when teams do switch, they tend to love it. Some companies even hire React devs and convert them to Svelte later.
Would I go again?
Absolutely. I'll be back next year - not necessarily to recruit (although we are hiring!), but to support the Svelte project, see how it evolves, and reconnect with the amazing people I met this time around. The summit was a celebration of creativity, a showcase of possibility, and a reminder of why developer tools matter - not just for code, but for community.
If you're a developer who cares about great DX, expressive code, and building things fast without burning out, you should consider giving Svelte a try - or better yet, join us at the next summit.
You can self-host Windmill using a
docker compose up, or go with the cloud app.