The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks: a benchmark reveals the real price

Nolan Lawson built the same Pokémon app five times with twelve different JavaScript frameworks, using Claude Code agents, to measure what each framework actually costs in AI-assisted development. He tracked API cost, wall-clock time, token usage, and Lighthouse scores. The results show Hono+htmx and Astro are cheapest, while SvelteKit, Gracile+Lit, and Angular are most expensive. But the variance is huge, and the author admits the experiment is stochastic and imperfect. Still, it's a rare evidence-based look at which frameworks work best with AI agents.