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Nectar, a Rust-like React that compiles to WebAssembly

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After a pretty rough gig experience, I wanted to remind myself that I was a vaguely capable developer. I had recently jumped on the Rust train and wanted a Rust equivalent of React that is more performant and easier to work with. I also wondered if I could effectively eject Javascript. This project came from that... Nectar is a programming language that compiles your entire app, logic, state, and rendering, to WebAssembly. JavaScript is reduced to a roughly 10 KB syscall layer that only bridges WASM to the DOM.The origin: I set out to get React-style ergonomics with better performance, and about halfway in I realized I had hit the ceiling of what was possible going through the browser's DOM (Blink/C++) and a diffing step. So I stopped fighting it and built my own signal-driven rendering layer that compiles to WASM and updates exactly the DOM nodes that changed, in O(1), with no virtual DOM and no garbage collector.What it is right now:- One binary. The same compiler does formatting, linting, testing, a dev server, an LSP, and SSR (although SSR is underdeveloped). - Fine-grained signals. Each binding updates on its own, so there is no diffing pass. - A Rust-inspired borrow checker for compile-time safety. - Language-level keywords for the patterns you reach for constantly on the web: component, store, router, form, auth, payment. - SEO and Screen Readers. It compiles to two DOMs from the same source so the app stays visible to screen readers and crawlers.Honest status, because this is early and it is mostly one person:- The "no JavaScript" line has an asterisk. WASM cannot touch the DOM directly, so there is a small JS bridge (about 10 KB) that as of this moment I cannot overcome on major browsers. - The numbers on the site (a counter is ~10 KB versus ~387 KB for React plus JS) are real but small examples, not a full-app shootout. I would not read them as more than they are. They are intentionally poorly architected to measure throughput at massive scales. (contrived) - License is BSL 1.1, so read that before you build anything real on it.Live demo, 10,000 products with a canvas rendering engine, plus a side by side against Svelte 5: https://buildnectar.com/app/canvasSite: https://buildnectar.com Code: https://github.com/HibiscusConsulting/nectar-langI would genuinely like it torn apart. If the core bet is wrong, crush my dreams but tell me how we can make it better, please. I still am not completely sure this is even a good idea. I honestly thought this would be a lot easier to build than it has been. If I had known at the start, I would have never built it, but here we are.

HN · launched Jul 6, 2026 · 29 upvotes (top 22%) · 0 views

Niche: software development frameworks · 154 launches, 2 in the last 7 days ▼ -89% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Developer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

No Creating a custom programming language and compiler that compiles a Rust-like reactive UI framework directly to WebAssembly without JavaScript requires advanced compiler design.

What it would actually take: Involves building an end-to-end compiler toolchain (lexer, parser, type checker, borrow checker/memory model, IR optimization, and code generator targeting WebAssembly directly or via LLVM/Cranelift) alongside a reactive runtime and WASM DOM manipulation bridge. The hard parts are defining safe memory semantics without a heavy GC, fine-grained reactivity in WASM, and zero-JS browser interop. This requires deep systems and compiler engineering expertise.

Discussion

18 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: Svelte, Leptos, Dioxus, egui, Floem

Concerns raised: Mobile and scroll functionality broken on Android/iOS, Safari and Edge browser compatibility issues, Benchmark is misleading - 10k rows without virtualization not representative of real use cases, Initial page load performance still struggling, Custom language syntax unfamiliar vs TypeScript/JavaScript ecosystem

Feature requests: Improve mobile scrolling and interaction, Fix Safari and Edge browser support, Add virtualization or pagination for large datasets, Improve initial load performance, Better accessibility for screen readers and SEO

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 818 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #214 of 819 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 248 days after the earliest competitor.

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