Written by Andy Li
As we head into 2025, staying on top of the Vue ecosystem isn’t just about keeping up — it’s about gaining the competitive edge that comes with mastering the latest features, performance improvements, and development workflows that will shape the future of Vue applications, including being prepared for any changing APIs of the tools we use.
In this article, we’ll explore the upcoming releases of key Vue tools: Nuxt v4, Vite v6, Vitest v3, and Pinia v3. We’ll also examine the current state of Vue’s Vapor mode.
Let’s explore the key updates coming for Vue developers. You’ll understand how these tools are evolving and how to prepare your development workflow for 2025!
Nuxt 4
While Nuxt v4 doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet, you can already try out its features!
Most of the Nuxt v4 features are already available in the current version of Nuxt v3 — you just need to opt into them through the Nuxt config file:
📄 /nuxt.config.js
export default defineNuxtConfig({
future: {
compatibilityVersion: 4
},
...
})
Make sure you’re using Nuxt v3.12 or higher to enable these features. To see the complete list of available Nuxt 4 features, check out my article Upgrading to Nuxt 4.
Even without updating the config, you can access some Nuxt 4 features by default in v3.13 or higher. I cover two of these features — Nuxt Route Groups and Custom Fetch Trigger — in my article Nuxt 4 features you can use now.
Vite 6
Vite is a tool that many frameworks depend on, powering the build process of countless modern web apps. The recently released Vite v6 introduces the Environment API — a feature that standardizes how JavaScript runs across different environments (client, server, edge, etc.). While most developers won’t use the Environment API directly, it serves primarily as a tool for framework and plugin creators.
Another recent important topic of Vite is the transition from Rollup to Rolldown. Set to replace Rollup in Vite’s internal achitecture, Rolldown is a new build tool that promises significantly faster build times and better memory efficiency, which will be especially beneficial for large-scale applications. For those who are wondering, Vite v6 is still using Rollup as its bundler.
If you want to learn more about Vite and Rolldown, you can check out the Build Process of a Vue app: Rollup vs Rolldown article.
Vitest 3
Vitest is currently at v2.1. Since it’s built on top of Vite, Vitest will release v3 in January 2025 to align with Vite’s new version. In terms of functionality, Vitest v3 is essentially equivalent to what would have been “Vitest v2.2.”
The Vitest Node API — which lets you run tests through a Node.js program — remains experimental in v2.1. While it will stay experimental in v3.0, the Vitest team plans to make it a stable feature in v3.1.
Pinia 3
Pinia is the official store management tool for Vue.js. The best thing about Pinia is that its API has been stable since v1, and v3 is no exception.
You still define a store with defineStore:
import { defineStore } from 'pinia'
export const useSampleStore = defineStore({})
You can still set your state, getters, and actions the same way:
export const useSampleStore = defineStore('sample', {
state() {
return { text: '' }
},
getters: {
uppercase(state) {
return state.text.toUpperCase()
}
},
actions: {
setText(val) {
this.text = val
}
}
}
And you can still use the Composition API style syntax to do the same thing:
export const useSampleStore = defineStore('sample', () => {
const text = ref('')
const uppercase = computed(() => {
return text.value.toUpperCase()
})
const setText = (val) => {
text.value = val
}
return { text, uppercase, setText }
})
The biggest change of this new version is that it will drop support for Vue v2. So this means, if you plan to use Pinia v3, your app would have to be running Vue v3.
Vapor Mode
Vue’s Vapor mode is still under research and development.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a version of Vue.js that doesn’t rely on Virtual DOM for rendering. Every time the state of a component is changed, Vue.js will create a Virtual DOM (VDOM) to represent the component’s new rendered result. Then, the VDOM is compared to the VDOM from the previous rendering in a process called diffing to figure out what has to be updated in the actual DOM.
Vapor Mode is designed to eliminate this Virtual DOM creation and the diffing steps, in order to make the reactive process faster.
By default, Vue.js with Virtual DOM is already fast. However, if you have too many reactive elements on the same page, and they have to be updated frequently, the user experience can get laggy at times. This is the use case for which Vapor mode is being created.
Vapor mode basically compiles your source code into a runtime version of the code that is already aware of what has to be updated when something is changed. More work is done in compile time so that less work has to be done in runtime.
Although Vapor Mode is still in development, you can experiment with it through the vue-vapor repo. Since it’s designed as a drop-in performance upgrade, you won’t need to modify your Vue.js components to benefit from the faster rendering — though your components must use the Composition API syntax.
On Vue Mastery, you can soon check out our Vapor Mode course taught by Vue Creator Evan You!
What’s Next for Vue in 2025
While 2025 doesn’t seem poised to drastically disrupt your Vue development workflow, we can expect positive evolution of the tools we already know and use. The Vue ecosystem has been steadily stabilizing, with fewer syntax changes compared to previous years. This stability means you won’t need to worry about your code breaking when installing new versions.
Staying tuned into the latest tools, workflows, and best practices in the Vue ecosystem ensures we stay on the leading edge of our career field. Our library of Vue courses, conferences talks and articles can help you stay at the top of your game, and right now you can get an entire year’s subscription for 50% off ! Become the best Vue developer you can be in 2025.
Originally published at https://www.vuemastery.com on December 18, 2024.
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