Showcase: Boosting Hexo math rendering performance with 3KB native MathML

[x-at-01]

For bloggers writing math-heavy technical posts with Hexo, equation rendering has always been a heavy burden. Popular Hexo math plugins rely on KaTeX or MathJax, leading to:

• SEO & Performance Impact: Visitors have to download large CSS, JS, and font files, directly affecting mobile load times and PageSpeed scores.
• Bloated DOM: Large amounts of styling and node structures are injected into static pages.

Native Browser MathML Core
Modern layout engines natively support MathML Core since early 2023. We can now compile LaTeX equations into native <math> tags on the server side (during the SSG process), requiring 0 KB of client-side JavaScript for math layout.

We developed @webc.site/math, a fast TeX-to-MathML compiler:

• Ultra-lightweight: Gzipped bundle size is only 3.58 KB.
• Super Fast: Compiles at ~329,000 ops/s, meaning even sites with hundreds of math-heavy articles build instantly.
• Zero Styling Assets: Relies on system math fonts (or a lightweight latin-modern-math font import) to achieve high-quality rendering natively.

We hope this provides the Hexo community with an alternative way to render math equations with maximum page performance!

[SukkaW]

Nice!

Right now, Hexo does not provide a native built-in Math feature; these kinds of features should be introduced as a Hexo plugin.

Currently, we do maintain an official plugin https://github.com/hexojs/hexo-math here. You can also create your own Hexo plugin and submit it to our official website, and share your creation here!