Build times in modern frontend development fell off a cliff in March 2026. Vite 8 shipped with Rolldown — a Rust-based bundler that replaces both esbuild and Rollup, runs the same Vite plugin API, and cuts production build times by 10–30x in real-world projects. Linear's build went from 46 seconds to 6. GitLab's shrank by 7x.
This guide covers Vite 8 from initial setup to production optimization: what the new Rust toolchain actually changes, Full Bundle Mode, TypeScript path resolution without plugins, and migrating from Vite 6 or 7.
What Vite Does
Vite solves two different problems with two different strategies.
Development: No bundling. Vite serves files over native ES modules directly to the browser on-demand. Dev server startup is sub-300ms regardless of project size.
