I’d avoid comparing Solid 2 and Octane primarily on benchmark speed. They’re both already attacking the “make DOM updates cheap” problem aggressively; the interesting comparison is what each makes you think about while building a real application. Solid makes fine-grained reactivity fundamental, while Octane deliberately preserves a component/re-render/hooks mental model and pushes more bookkeeping into its compiler. (SolidJS Docs)
I’d use these nine DX pillars:
| Pillar | The question I’d test |
|---|---|
| 1. State architecture freedom | Can state live wherever the domain says it should, or does the renderer pull it toward components? |
| 2. Reactive reasoning | How easy is it to understand why something updates and what depends on what? |
| 3. Derived state & synchronization | How much ceremony is required to derive values and keep systems synchronized without effects? |
| 4. Async/data flow | How naturally do promises, loading, errors, transitions, races, mutations and optimistic UI fit the model? |
| 5. Component authoring | How pleasant is ordinary component code: props, conditionals, lists, events, refs, composition? |
| 6. Escape hatches | When doing DOM work, subscriptions, timers, imperative libraries, etc., how ugly does the framework become? |
| 7. Ecosystem interoperability | How easily can I use TanStack, state libraries, UI primitives, forms, editors, charts, Tauri, etc.? |
| 8. Tooling & debuggability | TypeScript, editor support, HMR, profiling, stack traces, inspecting updates, compiler transparency. |
| 9. Architectural scaling | After 50k lines, does the framework help maintain boundaries—or encourage a giant ball of component logic? |
And I’d put far more weight on the first four than most framework comparisons do.
This is the one we were just talking about.
The test is not merely “does it support global state?” Almost everything does. The question is:
Does the framework exert gravitational pressure on application state to live in its component model?
Solid scores unusually well here because signals and stores are independent reactive primitives. Solid explicitly supports module-level reactive state; context is useful for ownership/injection, but isn't required just to escape a component. (SolidJS Docs)
Octane intentionally starts from the opposite direction: its documentation describes state as a component's memory and keeps useState, reducers, context, hooks, and component reruns as the default programming model. It does explicitly support external stores through useSyncExternalStore, and it has bindings for things like Zustand, Jotai, Redux and Redux Toolkit. (Octane)
So I'd test a deliberately non-component-shaped application architecture in both:
editor/
state
actions
events
history
persistence
documents/
state
actions
sync
ui/
Editor
Sidebar
Toolbar
Then ask: which renderer disappears more completely from the first two layers?
That test would tell you a lot.
This is probably the deepest philosophical comparison.
With Solid:
const [count, setCount] = createSignal(0);
const doubled = () => count() * 2;Reading count() establishes a dependency. Solid's fine-grained reactive graph is the actual execution model. (SolidJS Docs)
With Octane:
const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
const doubled = count * 2;The component is conceptually rerun, while Octane's compiler/runtime figures out how to update the DOM efficiently. Octane explicitly says it chose not to make signals foundational because it wants components to remain ordinary functions read top-to-bottom. (Octane)
So I'd evaluate:
“When this app does something surprising, which mental model makes the cause easier to reconstruct?”
That's different from LOC.
Solid gives you:
value → dependency graph → consumer
Octane gives you:
state change → component execution → compiler-determined update
Some developers will strongly prefer one.
This one catches frameworks that look beautiful in counters but get ugly in applications.
I'd implement examples involving:
selection
→ selected document
→ permissions
→ toolbar state
→ command availability
→ persisted preferences
and count:
- explicit effects
- dependency declarations
- duplicated state
- subscriptions
- memoization primitives
- stale-state footguns
Solid's model naturally makes derived reactive values part of its graph, with createMemo when memoization is appropriate. (SolidJS Docs)
Octane has made an interesting improvement over React here: its compiler infers effect dependencies, hooks aren't governed by React's usual call-order rules, and its docs explicitly push developers away from effects for ordinary data flow. (Octane)
So this isn't simply:
signals good / hooks bad.
Octane is essentially asking:
What if we fixed a bunch of the reasons hooks became unpleasant without abandoning the component execution model?
That's worth testing seriously.
For Solid 2 specifically, I'd make this a huge category.
Solid 2's headline architectural change is treating async as part of the reactive system rather than an adjacent resource mechanism. The RC announcement describes async as a property of the reactive graph itself. (SolidJS)
Octane instead retains the React-like use(Promise) + Suspense model but adds compiler-level improvements such as automatically starting independent use() operations together to avoid accidental waterfalls. (Octane)
I'd build the same realistic scenario:
route changes
↓
load document
↓
load permissions
↓
load comments
user edits document
↓
optimistic update
↓
server mutation
↓
cache reconciliation
meanwhile route changes again
Then evaluate:
Which system lets me describe what I want rather than manually coordinate time?
Race conditions, cancellation, stale results, optimistic state, Suspense and transitions should all count heavily here.
This could ultimately be Solid 2's strongest differentiator.
Here I'd purposely stay mundane.
Build 20 ordinary components and look at:
- conditional rendering
- keyed lists
- prop defaults
- event handlers
- children
- controlled inputs
- refs
- composition
- reusable behavior
Solid has the somewhat unusual JSX semantics that come from components executing once and reactive expressions updating independently. (SolidJS Docs)
Octane's whole pitch is familiarity. Standard TSX works, while TSRX optionally adds @if, @for, @switch, @try, etc.; .tsx and .tsrx components can interoperate one file at a time. (Octane)
This is where Octane may have a serious advantage for “I just want to write normal TypeScript functions.”
I'd score both:
initial readability and readability after six months.
Those aren't necessarily the same winner.
A framework's elegance is easy to maintain until you need to:
- integrate Monaco
- measure DOM geometry
- subscribe to WebSockets
- manage keyboard shortcuts
- attach imperative animation
- interact with Tauri
- integrate some weird browser API
Then you discover the actual framework.
Octane retains refs and effects, but removes dependency-array maintenance in compiler-supported cases and explicitly treats external systems as the intended use of effects. (Octane)
Solid has effects and lifecycle ownership built into its reactive system rather than component rerender semantics. (SolidJS Docs)
I'd measure:
How much conceptual switching happens when I leave the happy path?
I'd split this into two scores:
JS interoperability and React-ecosystem interoperability.
Plain JS libraries are generally easy for either framework. React-specific libraries are another matter.
Octane is explicitly pursuing compatibility by shipping its own bindings for React-oriented ecosystems. Its current docs list bindings covering shared state, TanStack tools, editors such as Monaco/Lexical/Tiptap, charts, virtualization, Tauri/Electron, testing and more; importantly, Octane itself warns that binding maturity varies and the project is alpha. (Octane)
Solid has a mature ecosystem of its own, but React-component/hook packages generally aren't drop-in Solid code.
This pillar matters enormously because:
Framework DX = core DX × probability that the library you need works.
A brilliant primitive doesn't help much if every unusual integration becomes framework archaeology.
I'd test:
Something rendered twice / didn't render / updated slowly.
How quickly can I answer WHY?
Include:
- TypeScript errors
- editor completion
- source maps
- HMR state preservation
- compiler diagnostics
- component inspection
- reactive/store inspection
- profiler usefulness
- production stack traces
This is especially important for Octane because it deliberately transfers complexity from application code into compilation/runtime machinery. Octane already exposes profiling metadata including render causes and compiler-known hook/source locations. (Octane)
The compiler can make code simpler to write but harder to explain if tooling doesn't keep up.
So I'd have a specific metric:
Distance between source code and runtime behavior.
Finally I'd build something that's intentionally too large for toy-framework patterns.
I'd look for whether the framework encourages:
Component
├─ rendering
├─ data fetching
├─ mutations
├─ state
├─ derived state
├─ persistence
├─ subscriptions
└─ business rules
or lets me maintain:
Domain model
↓
reactive/application layer
↓
UI
This is related to state architecture, but broader.
The question is:
Does my application become organized around the domain, or around the renderer?
For the way you tend to architect frontend applications, I'd weight this very heavily.
If I were actually doing the comparison, I'd score it approximately:
| DX pillar | Weight |
|---|---|
| State architecture freedom | 18% |
| Reactive reasoning | 15% |
| Async/data flow | 15% |
| Derived state & synchronization | 12% |
| Architectural scaling | 12% |
| Component authoring | 10% |
| Ecosystem interoperability | 8% |
| Escape hatches | 5% |
| Tooling/debuggability | 5% |
And I'd keep runtime performance separate from DX entirely. Both projects are making serious renderer-performance claims, and Octane's own benchmark suite currently compares itself directly against Solid 2 among several frameworks. But framework-owned benchmarks shouldn't decide a DX evaluation anyway. (Octane)
The fascinating overarching comparison is therefore:
Solid 2:
Make the reactive graph powerful enough that application complexity becomes declarative.
Octane:
Keep ordinary component code familiar and make the compiler powerful enough that application complexity disappears.
That's a much more interesting contest than signals vs hooks.