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React 0.14 is 132KB minified [1].

I wouldn't exactly consider React "lightweight," especially compared to other frameworks like Mercury [2], Mithril [3], and Riot [4], which are a fraction of the size of React but still have their own virtual DOM implementations.

[1] https://fb.me/react-0.14.0.min.js

[2] https://github.com/Raynos/mercury

[3] http://mithril.js.org

[4] http://riotjs.com/

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People usually compare the 'size over the wire', eg. gzipped size. In these terms:

- React 0.14 is 55kb

- jQuery 1.11 is 38kb

- Backbone + Underscore (dependency) are 15kb

Is there any statement from the React team about the size?

I don't have a reference for this, but when it's come up in the past they've said size is not a primary goal for the project. A lot of the size comes from their internal event system that normalizes events cross-browser along with the extra abstraction for pluggable renderers (i.e. support React Native) and the component-local state handling. None of these are necessary to get the virutal dom model working. Finally, 132k minified is 40k after gzip. It's not THAT large but it's not a lightweight framework either.

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