Website JS Bloat

Comments criticize the excessive size of JavaScript bundles on websites, often 1MB+ for simple pages, and debate acceptable limits compared to minimal alternatives.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Web Development
4,986
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#1679
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
5
2008
11
2009
36
2010
57
2011
82
2012
148
2013
151
2014
134
2015
215
2016
500
2017
490
2018
391
2019
381
2020
520
2021
394
2022
474
2023
278
2024
299
2025
388
2026
32

Keywords

BBC RAM MB ICU CSS JIT JS HN KB gov.scot js page mb kb jquery javascript web megabytes css size

Sample Comments

andrepd Dec 17, 2023 View on HN

I expect its not significantly larger than loading your average 2023 webpage with 15MB of js

markdown Jan 7, 2022 View on HN

30kb is too much for js. A modern website should run fine on half of that.

tuananh Aug 7, 2020 View on HN

1MB+ gzipped JS? That's a lot

Mandatum Oct 18, 2013 View on HN

I think you need to decrease the size of the JS file, it's 41KB for essentially displaying a few numbers.

5- Jul 10, 2024 View on HN

indeed! what a nice, minimal page... that comes with ~1.6mb of javascript.

Avery3R Jun 25, 2019 View on HN

"Just download 8 megabytes of javascript and wait 10 seconds for a page that's mainly made up of static content and should be under ~1mb and load instantly"

astrobe_ Jul 30, 2024 View on HN

Oh, my bad! It's a "landing page"! Totally normal that it needs to 200 Kb of JS to display 1 Kb of text!

gniv Dec 24, 2021 View on HN

It's really only about 43k and it loads instantaneously for me. The rest is scripts and other stuff that's cached. I think this is the right tradeoff for an ultra-popular site.

crimsonzagar Mar 15, 2013 View on HN

With under 4kb js and 2kb css I guess it is pretty far from being a bloat.

norman784 Jun 20, 2025 View on HN

You are being generous, most sites ships at least few MB of JS garbage.