@acusti/vite-plugin-react-compiler

A Vite plugin that runs React Compiler via oxc-transform-react, the native Node bindings for the oxc project’s Rust port of the compiler — a drop-in alternative to the Babel-based React Compiler build path.

It was extracted from the build tooling of Outlyne, where it runs in production.

Why this exists

Vite/Rolldown decided against shipping the Rust React Compiler integration in Vite core over the binary size it would add, so the official React Compiler path for Vite remains Babel: @vitejs/plugin-react’s reactCompilerPreset running babel-plugin-react-compiler via @rolldown/plugin-babel. That works, but it drags a full Babel parse/transform/print pipeline through every source file of an otherwise all-native oxc/rolldown build.

This plugin is the published native alternative: a transform-hook plugin that calls oxc-transform-react, the Rust React Compiler bindings the oxc project publishes. The compiler pass runs with enforce: 'pre' (the same position the Babel pass occupies today) and emits JSX untouched (jsx: 'preserve'), so Vite’s own oxc transform stays in charge of JSX/refresh/TypeScript handling downstream — the plugin only adds the compiler pass. (oxc-transform-react does strip TypeScript syntax, which matches how the Babel path uses @babel/preset-typescript.)

Usage

npm install --save-dev @acusti/vite-plugin-react-compiler
# or
yarn add --dev @acusti/vite-plugin-react-compiler
# or
pnpm add --save-dev @acusti/vite-plugin-react-compiler
# or
bun add --dev @acusti/vite-plugin-react-compiler

The plugin depends on an exact, tested version of oxc-transform-react: the bindings are on a fast-moving 0.x release train tracking React Compiler main, and new bindings releases are close to 100% bug fixes (the Rust port chases parity with the existing widely-used Babel plugin), so the plugin pins the newest version that passes this repo’s test suite and ships it in regular plugin releases. If you need a different version, use your package manager’s overrides (npm, pnpm, bun) or resolutions (yarn) to force it.

Like @acusti/vite-plugin-svg-react, this plugin requires Vite ≥ 8, on purpose: its reason for existing is completing the all-native oxc/rolldown pipeline that Vite 8 introduced.

Add the plugin to your vite config (and remove any Babel-based React Compiler wiring, e.g. reactCompilerPreset + @rolldown/plugin-babel):

// vite.config.ts
import reactCompiler from '@acusti/vite-plugin-react-compiler';
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react';
import { defineConfig } from 'vite';

export default defineConfig({
    plugins: [react(), reactCompiler()],
});

Options

The plugin takes an optional options object with four properties:

• include / exclude: standard Vite createFilter patterns selecting which modules get the compiler pass. Defaults: include: /\.[jt]sx?$/, exclude: /[/\\]node_modules[/\\]/.
• reactCompiler: options passed verbatim to React Compiler, using the same names as babel-plugin-react-compiler: compilationMode, panicThreshold (defaults to 'none'), target (defaults to '19'), environment flags like enableTreatRefLikeIdentifiersAsRefs, and so on. Callback-valued options (e.g. logger, function-valued sources) don’t cross the native boundary and aren’t supported; sources accepts an array of filename substrings instead.
• memoize: cache transform results per module id, keyed by a content hash (bounded to one entry per file). Multi-environment builds (e.g. React Router apps building client + SSR environments) run every transform once per environment; the cache makes the repeat passes free. Defaults to true.

reactCompiler({
    exclude: [/node_modules/, /\.stories\./],
    reactCompiler: {
        environment: { enableTreatRefLikeIdentifiersAsRefs: true },
    },
});

If the compiler reports a fatal error (a parse failure or rejected options), the plugin fails the build via this.error(...), just like a Babel syntax error would. Nonfatal compiler bail-outs behave as they do with the Babel plugin under panicThreshold: 'none': the affected function is left uncompiled and the build continues.

Caveats, and results from production

The Rust port of React Compiler and the oxc-transform-react bindings are experimental and explicitly labeled as such upstream. Measure and verify against the Babel plugin before trusting it (the __COMPILER_RUNTIME.c memo cache calls in output are easy to diff). Alongside the plugin’s own tests, this repo runs an upstream-tracking suite against the pinned bindings version: it pins the ways the Rust port already exceeds [email protected] by tracking React Compiler main (computed object keys and try/catch value blocks both compile), pins Babel-parity fixes as they land (react-hooks lint suppressions opt functions out of compilation since 0.144.0), and tracks known upstream divergences as they arise, re-verified on every bindings bump before it ships in a plugin release.

Verified results from the production Vite 8 + React Router app this plugin was extracted from, compared against [email protected] across 987 source files:

• Full memoization parity with zero regressions — every function the Babel plugin compiles, the Rust port compiles. It compiles a strict superset, since the Rust port tracks React Compiler main rather than the latest stable release.
• The compiler pass is ~16x faster than the Babel pass.
• The full production build is ~2.5x faster (53s → 21s).