Viem - The Ethereum Library That Doesn't Suck

Look, if you've been building on Ethereum for a while, you know the pain. Ethers.js works, sure, but it's heavy as fuck and the TypeScript support feels like an afterthought. Web3.js? Don't even get me started on that legacy mess.

Viem is what happens when someone actually thinks about what developers need in 2025. Built by the wevm team, it's basically "what if we rebuilt Ethers but didn't suck at TypeScript?"

Core Philosophy and Design

Viem was built from the ground up with four key principles driving its architecture:

Developer Experience: The types actually work. Like, really work. No more wrestling with any types or manually defining contract interfaces. Viem infers everything from your ABI and doesn't make you write a bunch of boilerplate just to call a function.

Performance: Your bundle won't be a bloated nightmare. Viem is way smaller than Ethers - we're talking like 35KB vs 130KB+. Tree-shaking actually works, so you only ship what you use. Check the bundle size comparison yourself.

Types That Don't Lie: Everything is typed properly from day one. Pass in a contract ABI and Viem knows what functions exist, what parameters they take, what they return. No more contract.functions.something() returning any and hoping for the best. The TypeScript integration is actually well-designed.

Actually Modular: You can import just the shit you need. Unlike other libraries where importing one function pulls in half the internet, Viem lets you cherry-pick. Your build tools will thank you.

How It Actually Works

Instead of one giant client that does everything, Viem splits things up logically:

• Public Client: Read stuff from the blockchain - balances, contract state, whatever
• Wallet Client: Sign transactions, deal with user wallets
• Test Client: Local dev stuff with Anvil/Hardhat/Ganache

This isn't just architectural masturbation - it means you don't load wallet code when you're just reading data. And they use native BigInt instead of pulling in some heavy BigNumber library. One less dependency to worry about. Check out their client architecture docs for the full breakdown.

Who's Actually Using This

The download numbers speak for themselves - 1.9+ million weekly downloads as of August 2025. That's not just hype, people are actually shipping this in production.

Big names like Stripe, Uniswap, Rainbow, WalletConnect, and Paradigm have switched over. Wagmi (the React hooks everyone uses) is built on top of Viem. When the ecosystem starts moving, that usually means something's working.

The test coverage is solid at 99.8% and they run tests against actual forked networks, not just mocked bullshit. The testing setup is actually comprehensive. I've been using it in production for months and haven't hit any weird edge cases that made me want to switch back to Ethers. Check the GitHub issues - most problems get fixed fast and the maintainers actually respond.

Look, at the end of the day, you want to talk to Ethereum without wanting to throw your laptop out the window. Here's what Viem gives you:

Talking to the Blockchain

The JSON-RPC stuff just works. No manual connection pooling, no batching headaches, no figuring out why your requests are failing randomly. Viem handles all that crap so you can focus on building your app instead of debugging network issues.

Want to check a balance? Query a block? Get transaction details? It's all there and it actually works reliably. The retry logic is built-in because we all know how flaky RPC endpoints can be. Check their RPC transport docs for all the details.

Smart Contracts That Don't Make You Cry

This is where Viem really shines. You know that feeling when you're trying to call a smart contract and you have to manually type out every function signature? Yeah, fuck that.

Drop your ABI into Viem and it magically knows what functions exist, what parameters they take, and what they return. TypeScript completion works, your IDE is happy, and you won't accidentally pass a string where you need a number. The type inference is actually intelligent.

The ABI encoding/decoding handles all the weird edge cases - complex structs, nested arrays, tuple types. I've never had it fail on some weird data structure that breaks other libraries. Their ABI utilities documentation covers everything you need.

Wallet Stuff That Actually Works

MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, WalletConnect, private keys for backend stuff - it all works the same way. One API, no matter what wallet your users have. Check out their account abstraction docs for the full picture.

Gas estimation works without you having to think about it. Nonce management isn't your problem anymore. You build transactions, Viem figures out the details. But if you need to override something for edge cases, you can.

Local Development

Works with Anvil, Hardhat, Ganache - whatever you're already using for local development. The test client has all the useful debugging stuff like account impersonation and messing with block timestamps.

Same TypeScript experience whether you're testing locally or running against mainnet. I spend most of my time in local development and the types work exactly the same, which is honestly rare for Web3 libraries.

Why It's Actually Fast

Small bundles are just the start. Viem lazy-loads stuff you don't need immediately, batches RPC requests intelligently, and doesn't do unnecessary work. The performance optimizations are built-in, not bolted on.

You can build custom clients with just the features you need. If you're building a mobile app where every KB counts, this matters a lot. Check their bundle optimization guide.

The EIP-712 signing works without any extra setup. Error messages actually tell you what went wrong instead of some cryptic hex code. It feels more like building a normal web app and less like wrestling with blockchain infrastructure. Their error handling docs are actually useful.