Web components enable UI interoperability, allowing you to build reusable components that work across any framework — or to avoid frameworks altogether.

The New Stack is a publication covering trends and technologies in cloud-native development, DevOps, and software delivery. Developers can learn about containerization, Kubernetes, and cloud computing, as well as explore topics such as microservices architecture, serverless computing, and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

The New Stack

Web components are experiencing a resurgence as developers tire of framework complexity and bloated bundles. Native browser APIs like custom elements and Shadow DOM offer framework-agnostic, lightweight alternatives that work across React, Vue, or vanilla JavaScript without modification. Major browser support is now stable, and libraries like Lit have improved developer experience. The interoperability advantage makes web components ideal for design systems and microfrontends, allowing teams to build reusable UI components once and deploy them anywhere. As performance budgets tighten and framework fatigue sets in, the native web platform capabilities are proving sufficient for most modern applications.

Web Components Are the Comeback Nobody Saw Coming

Why Web Components Never Took Off the First Time

Interoperability: The Silent Killer Feature

What are the numbers behind this statement? Or is it just a personal feeling of the author?

Web components themselves are bloated by definition as they are completely isolated which means they do not use already-existing code in your project like CSS library or other components. It’s basically a black-box.

You don’t need to use Shadow DOM but can still benefit from using web components as a way of organizing your DOM-related code. See Drab for instance; <a href="https://drab.robino.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://drab.robino.dev/</a> – allows you to use e.g. Tailwind CSS or any other global styling.

Classic confusing web components with framework components. Comparing apples to oranges. Web components aren’t the includes you’re hoping for. They’re HTML with a this keyword.

While I personally believe Web Components have a lot of unseen potential, this article feels more like an author’s opinion. For the record, here is a library I wrote that uses Web Components in an unconventional way, preferring the Light DOM over the Shadow DOM: <a href="https://radiant.ecopages.app/docs/core/radiant-element" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://radiant.ecopages.app/docs/core/radiant-element</a>