Storybook vs Ladle: which is better for fast component dev?

Ladle cold-starts in about 6 seconds on a 350-story component library, versus roughly 58 seconds for Storybook running the same benchmark, and that gap is why teams reach for Ladle when local iteration speed is the bottleneck. Storybook stays the better choice once a project needs cross-framework support, visual regression testing, or a large addon catalog, since Ladle doesn't ship an addon API at all.

Those startup and build numbers come from Ladle's own benchmark against Storybook 6 on the Base Web library, run by the Uber team that built Ladle. Storybook has since added an official Vite builder that narrows the startup gap, but Ladle still skips Storybook's abstraction layer entirely, which keeps it faster by default and easier to reason about when something breaks.

When Storybook makes sense

Storybook fits teams building a design system consumed outside React, or that need Chromatic-driven visual regression, accessibility audits, or Figma integration already wired into their workflow. Nearly a decade of addon development means most integrations already exist; the tradeoff is a heavier setup and slower local server unless the Vite builder is configured.

When Ladle makes sense

Ladle fits React-only teams running small to mid-sized component libraries who want the dev server to stay out of the way. It was built as a drop-in replacement for Storybook using the same Component Story Format, so most existing .stories files load without rewrites. Code-split builds and state-preserving hot reload keep it fast as the story count grows, though there's no addon marketplace to lean on if requirements expand.

Who should pick what

A small internal component library maintained by a handful of React developers, with no need for cross-framework support or automated visual diffing, is a straightforward fit for Ladle. A product team publishing a shared design system to designers and QA, supporting non-React consumers, or already relying on Chromatic for visual regression, gets more long-term value from Storybook's ecosystem even with the slower dev server.