I was also surprised by that comment. I just checked and React still has on the order of less than 30 methods/properties in its entire public API surface. Vue.js has quite a bit more.

If the parent means by byte count, React + ReactDOM is about 32.5KB, Vue is 30.3KB. Not a dramatic difference in byte bloat, either.

It's the ecosystem that makes it seem bloated. 32k vs 30k is nothing.

Wait, what? A large ecosystem of libraries that are not included by default but are available for you to use is somehow a bad thing (as "bloat" implies)?

I agree with you, but there's a joke about npm and leftpad in here somewhere.