What is the difference between the virtual dom and real dom

Real DOM

• Direct tree representation of the actual HTML page.
• Changing an element (like a header) triggers a full page re-render, which is slow.

Virtual DOM

• A lightweight JavaScript copy of the real DOM.
• When changes occur, it compares the new Virtual DOM with a snapshot of the old one ("diffing").
• It calculates the minimum necessary changes and updates only those specific parts in the real DOM. This is much faster.

Key Difference: The Virtual DOM enables efficient, targeted updates instead of costly full-page re-renders.