About a month or so ago, Microsoft dropped some big news: they are rewriting the TypeScript compiler in Go, moving away from JavaScript. What really caught everyone’s attention was the bold claim that this move would bring a 10x boost in speed. Of course, the online tech communities went crazy—but let’s break down what’s actually going on behind all this hype.
What’s Really Getting Faster?
Let’s get this straight: your TypeScript code won’t run 10x faster in the browser or in Node.js. What’s faster is the compiler—the tool that turns .ts files into JavaScript. So your code is transpiled more quickly, but the resulting JavaScript runs the same as before. Any time you hear ten times faster, it’s worth asking: What was slowing things down in the first place?
Still, this is a huge win for developer experience, especially in large projects where compile time can usually be a bottleneck.
Why Was the Old Compiler Slower?
The original TypeScript compiler was written in JavaScript, running on Node.js. While Node is great for handling I/O-heavy workloads (like web servers or APIs), it’s not designed for heavy CPU-bound tasks like:
- Parsing large codebases
- Type-checking
- Emitting JavaScript output
These are exactly the things a compiler does, and Node’s single-threaded nature limits how much work it can do in parallel.
Why Go Over Node?
Enter Go.
Go is designed for performance, concurrency, and simplicity. It has a feature called goroutines—lightweight threads that can run independently and simultaneously. This means the new TypeScript compiler can:
- Parse files in parallel
- Check types across modules concurrently
- Emit code using all available CPU cores
No hacks. No complex thread pooling. Just simple go function calls and channels to handle tasks concurrently.
But Doesn’t Node Have Worker Threads?
It does. But using worker threads in a large, mature codebase like the TypeScript compiler is a huge refactor. It’s not just plug-and-play. It requires:
- Rethinking how data is shared between threads
- Handling the increased memory overhead
- Managing thread lifecycle and complexity
Go, by contrast, was built from the ground up for this kind of workload.
So the TypeScript team probably figured: why not start clean, in a language made for concurrency?
🚧 Could This Unlock New TypeScript Features?
It’s worth wondering: could this transition eventually enable new features in TypeScript that were previously too computationally expensive to implement in the JavaScript-based compiler?
Sometimes performance gains don’t just make existing workflows faster—they unlock entirely new possibilities. With Go’s concurrency and speed, we might see more advanced type-checking, deeper static analysis, or smarter editor tooling that wouldn’t have been feasible before.
The real win might not just be compile time—it could be what the compiler becomes capable of in the future.
đź“Š Benchmark Drama: Is It Really 10x?
How reproducible is that “10x faster” claim?
Spoiler: It’s probably “up to 10x” under ideal conditions—like massive projects or cold starts—but even then, that’s still a big win.
What Does This Mean for You?
If you’re a developer using TypeScript, here’s what changes:
- Your compile times will eventually get much faster
- You’ll get quicker feedback during builds and dev cycles
- Your final app’s performance? Unchanged (it’s still JavaScript!)
But the deeper lesson here is this: Always pick the right tool for the job.
Node.js is amazing for many tasks. But when it comes to CPU-heavy work like building compilers, Go or Rust might be better suited.
👨🏾‍💻 Final Thoughts from a Dev in Kisumu
This story is a great reminder that performance isn’t just about “fast code.” It’s about how your tools scale with your workload. Go didn’t make TypeScript magically faster. It just removed the bottlenecks that JavaScript and Node couldn’t handle well.
As developers, we don’t just write code—we choose our tools. And choosing the right one can make all the difference.
✍️ Written by Kennedy Ada, a full-stack developer at Zone01 Kisumu
Top comments (5)
honestly love this kinda deep dive about tools, makes me rethink what i'm actually using day to day
JSDocs is infinity times faster, because it has no impact on speed at all. Also fully TS Engine and
tsccompatible.Love it
nice breakdown of the hype!
It would have been nice if they migration would impact the overall benchmark time for js apps, for now the compiler is a good starting point. The bottom-line, javascript still remains javascript