NOTICE: I've summarized the perspectives of Octane's and Solid's creators here, for anyone short on time: https://gist.github.com/aleclarson/829c10aa7d287944ef75e1c2a90bef06
I'm a React/Preact/Astro developer with an interest in other renderers. The two that have most caught my eye recently are Octane (from Dominic Gannaway of React Hooks / Svelte / Inferno fame) and Solid 2.
I asked ChatGPT to compare them with its own "Renderer DX Pillars", which I've shared below. This is its gut instinct, with very little hedging:
| Pillar | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| State architecture freedom | ||
| Solid 2 | ||
| Reactivity is independent of components. Much less component gravity. | ||
| Reactive reasoning | ||
| Solid 2 | ||
| The dependency graph is explicit and causal. Easier to answer “why did this update?” | ||
| Derived state & synchronization | ||
| Solid 2 | ||
| Fine-grained derivation is the native model; less need to coordinate state manually. | ||
| Async/data flow | ||
| Solid 2 | ||
| This is basically Solid 2's flagship idea. Async being part of reactivity feels deeper than improving Suspense/hooks ergonomics. | ||
| Component authoring | ||
| Octane | ||
| Normal values, normal functions, familiar TSX, fewer Solid-specific semantic gotchas. | ||
| Escape hatches | ||
| Solid 2, narrowly | ||
| Solid's primitives compose very directly with imperative JS without pretending everything is a component concern. | ||
| Ecosystem interoperability | ||
| Octane | ||
| If its React-ecosystem compatibility ambitions work, this could be a huge advantage. | ||
| Tooling & debuggability | ||
| Solid 2 today | ||
| More mature and battle-tested. Octane's compiler creates more invisible machinery that tooling has to explain well. | ||
| Architectural scaling | ||
| Solid 2 | ||
| Its reactive model naturally lets domain/application architecture exist independently of rendering. |
So my gut scoreboard is:
Solid 2: 7 Octane: 2
But the two Octane wins are meaningful ones.
Its pitch seems particularly strong around:
“I want React's authoring experience without React's runtime/design baggage.”
You get something like:
function Counter() {
const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
const doubled = count * 2;
return <button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>
{doubled}
</button>;
}
That's extremely approachable.
Solid asks you to internalize:
const [count, setCount] = createSignal(0);
const doubled = () => count() * 2;
which isn't hard, but it is a different programming model.
So for day-one DX, I wouldn't be surprised if Octane feels better.
Solid's advantages seem to accumulate as the application becomes less like:
some components with state
and more like:
a complex reactive application that happens to have a UI.
That's where signals outside components, ownership, fine-grained derivation, async graph semantics, stores, and independent domain state all start reinforcing each other.
My gut says the trajectory looks something like:
small app
Octane ██████████
Solid █████████
↓ complexity
large/stateful app
Octane ████████
Solid ████████████
Not because Octane necessarily scales poorly, but because Solid's abstraction seems closer to the actual problem being modeled once state relationships get complicated.
Escape hatches.
Octane could easily end up winning there if its compiler makes effects, refs, subscriptions and integration code extraordinarily pleasant.
And ecosystem interoperability could become an overwhelming Octane win if their compatibility layer is genuinely broad and reliable rather than “we have adapters for the popular demos.”
If I had to assign confidence rather than points:
Solid strongly wins: state architecture, derived state, async, architectural scaling.Solid probably wins: reactive reasoning, escape hatches.Octane strongly wins: initial component authoring.Octane probably wins: ecosystem interoperability.Solid wins for now: tooling/maturity.
The biggest question I'd personally want answered before choosing between them is therefore not performance.
It's:
Does Octane's compiler actually eliminate the architectural drawbacks of component-centric reactivity, or does it mostly make that model much nicer to write?
If it's the latter, I'd expect Solid 2 to remain the stronger foundation for complex applications.