3kB

as compared to nextjs’ ~150kb baseline? (not a real number im just guesstimating)

It’s not directly comparable. Svelte apps have an extremely minimal runtime, because Svelte compiles components into largely freestanding chunks of code.

The benefit is that for smaller apps, SvelteKit can be extremely lean, but the cost grows as the number of components and pages increases, since a number of attributes can’t draw from a larger, monolithic runtime (or set of runtimes).

You do have to build moderately large apps to hit the point at which it’s a drawback however.

79.46 kb which includes React. That's never where the bloat comes from.

I believe that's already a compressed size (not minified) that means 200kB+ minified (zero app code).