The case for zero JavaScript
Most pages are documents. Shipping them without a script is a feature, not a limitation.
By Ada Demir
1 min read
Most of the web is still documents: an article, a menu, a price list, a page of docs. They load a framework anyway, and the reader pays for it on a train with one bar of signal.
What you give up
Less than you think. A details element opens and closes, a form posts, a link prefetches the next page with Speculation Rules. The browser has learned a great deal since we last checked.
- Menus and accordions:
<details>and<summary> - Dark mode:
prefers-color-scheme - Instant navigation: prefetching on hover
What you get
Pages that render on the first round trip, that a screen reader understands, and that still work in ten years. When a page truly needs a script, it should say so out loud.
The fastest script is the one you never send.
Start from zero and add what the page asks for. It is a better default than starting from everything and trying to take it away.
