svelte/documentation/docs/01-getting-started/01-introduction.md

---
title: Introduction
---

Welcome to the Svelte reference documentation! This is intended as a resource for people who already have some familiarity with Svelte and want to learn more about using it.

If that's not you (yet), you may prefer to visit the [interactive tutorial](https://learn.svelte.dev) or the [examples](/examples) before consulting this reference. You can try Svelte online using the [REPL](/repl). Alternatively, if you'd like a more fully-featured environment, you can try Svelte on [StackBlitz](https://sveltekit.new).

## Start a new project

We recommend using [SvelteKit](https://kit.svelte.dev/), the official application framework from the Svelte team:

```
npm create svelte@latest myapp
cd myapp
npm install
npm run dev
```

SvelteKit will handle calling [the Svelte compiler](https://www.npmjs.com/package/svelte) to convert your `.svelte` files into `.js` files that create the DOM and `.css` files that style it. It also provides all the other pieces you need to build a web application such as a development server, routing, deployment, and SSR support. [SvelteKit](https://kit.svelte.dev/) uses [Vite](https://vitejs.dev/) to build your code.

### Alternatives to SvelteKit

If you don't want to use SvelteKit for some reason, you can also use Svelte with Vite (but without SvelteKit) by running `npm init vite` and selecting the `svelte` option. With this, `npm run build` will generate HTML, JS and CSS files inside the `dist` directory. In most cases, you will probably need to [choose a routing library](/faq#is-there-a-router) as well.

Alternatively, there are [plugins for all the major web bundlers](https://sveltesociety.dev/tools#bundling) to handle Svelte compilation — which will output `.js` and `.css` that you can insert into your HTML — but most others won't handle SSR.

## Editor tooling

The Svelte team maintains a [VS Code extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=svelte.svelte-vscode) and there are integrations with various other [editors](https://sveltesociety.dev/tools#editor-support) and tools as well.

## Getting help

Don't be shy about asking for help in the [Discord chatroom](https://svelte.dev/chat)! You can also find answers on [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/svelte).