June 10, 2026
Rust never sleeps, comments never chill
Port React Compiler to Rust
React’s big Rust makeover has fans curious, skeptics loud, and architecture nerds fighting
TLDR: React’s compiler is being ported to Rust in an early experimental project that reportedly runs much faster, though it’s not ready for normal users yet. Commenters were split between curiosity, skepticism over whether anyone even uses it, and arguments about whether the team chose the wrong technical path.
React’s team just dropped an early, messy, no-download-yet preview of a plan to move its compiler—the tool that helps optimize React code—from TypeScript to Rust, and the community instantly made it less about code and more about vibes. The official pitch is big: same overall design, same test coverage, all 1,725 fixtures passing, and early speed claims that suggest the new version could be much faster. There’s even a very 2020s twist: the author openly says the architecture was guided by humans, but most of the code was written by AI. Naturally, that detail alone was enough to summon a whole side-quest of raised eyebrows.
But the real drama in the comments was a split-screen moment. On one side, you had the cautious optimists saying, basically, fine, experiment all you want, just don’t force it on everyone. One commenter gave the project a soft blessing because it seems optional and clearly communicated. On the other side were the skeptics asking the brutally simple question: does anyone even use the React compiler? That one hits hard, because nothing deflates a shiny engineering announcement faster than the internet replying, “Wait, people wanted this?”
Then came the niche-but-spicy architecture fight. One commenter was baffled that the port still revolves around Babel’s format instead of going full native with faster Rust-based tooling, calling the whole thing a little backwards. And for pure comedy, someone immediately asked if they could port it to Lean4 instead of Rust, because of course every serious engineering thread must contain at least one wonderfully chaotic suggestion. In other words: impressive progress, strong speed promises, and a comment section that turned into a mix of curiosity, doubt, and nerd-on-nerd combat.
Key Points
- •The article presents an experimental Rust port of React Compiler that is being shared before internal testing at Meta and currently has no ready-made builds.
- •The Rust implementation mirrors the TypeScript compiler architecture, including pass-by-pass processing through HIR with CFG and SSA.
- •The public API uses a Rust representation of Babel AST plus scope information, with Babel, OXC, and SWC integrations converting to and from native formats.
- •Early, not fully validated benchmarks suggest the Rust version is about 3x faster as a Babel plugin and roughly 10x faster in transformation logic alone.
- •The project reports full fixture parity: all 1,725 fixtures pass, including output and errors, and detailed per-pass internal-state comparisons also match closely.