Nestjs : Bun vs Nodejs

Bun vs Node: A Simple HTTP Server Comparison

This is a brief comparison of running a simple nestjs HTTP server using two different JavaScript runtimes: Node.js and Bun.

Setting Up the NestJS Application

First, I created a basic NestJS application by running the following command:

nest new cloud-bot

To start the server using the Node.js runtime, I ran:

pnpm start

For benchmarking, I used a tool called wrk to measure the server’s performance. Here’s the result when running the server on Node.js:

The result is fairly decent for a basic “Hello World” application.

Running the Server with Bun

Next, I ran the same server using Bun with the following command:

bun run src/main.ts

Here’s the benchmark result for Bun:

As you can see, Bun is approximately 4x faster in this “Hello World” API benchmark.

Conclusion

While Bun shows impressive speed improvements for a simple setup, I encountered several issues when trying to use it in a more complex, real-world application. Due to these challenges, I decided to switch back to Node.js for the time being.

If you’re wondering whether Bun is better than Node, it has great potential, especially with its fast package manager. However, Bun needs more updates and releases to reach the maturity level of Node.js.

I hope this helps anyone considering switching to Bun!