Say what you will, but since its introduction in 2009, Node.js has been the undisputed king of server-side Javascript. Created by Ryan Dahl, Node.js had virtually no competition for years.
Until recently, the only person to truly challenge Node.js was Ryan Dahl with his runtime Deno that improved upon some of the flaws that Ryan saw in Node.js which that were systematic and difficult to fix.
Well, there is a new competitor NOT written by Ryan this time called Bun. Who said 2022 had no surprises left?
It’s a silly name, but what isn’t silly is how impressive Bun is.
From their own website metrics, you can see Bun greatly exceeds Node and Deno in performance quite substantially. Always do your own research and take metrics like these with a grain of salt, but even if only 50% of what is reported is still better.
Ryan Dahl and the investors who have poured millions into Deno must be sweating a little bit right now.
Not only is Bun a way faster runtime, it also bridges some of the gaps that Deno left (and I believe hindered its adoption).
Where Bun differs from others is it uses Javascript Core instead of the Google V8 engine.
Not only does Bun replace Node and Deno, it also seems to go further and replace a tonne of other things.
- A bundler that replaces Webpack
- Transpiler that supports TypeScript compilation (a la Deno)
- Support for Npm packages
- Task runner
- Test runner
- Coverage of most of the Node API’s (currently 90%)
Honestly, Bun is incredible. It is what Deno should have been when it launched. Being so new, it’s inevitable that there might be bugs or certain features missing that make it less plug and play than it portrays, but for a project that will only get better: it’s impressive.
Bun feels like a project that has a very bright and promising future ahead of it. If Deno doesn’t do something to catch up, then my money would be on Bun.
