Dear fellow developer, are you still using Node/npm for every project? There might be better options.
The JavaScript runtime landscape has evolved significantly with tools like Bun and Deno (among others) offering better alternatives focusing on performance, security and DX.
Wait! What are JS runtimes anyway?
Think of runtimes as an environment that enables JS code execution; whether in a browser or on a server like Node.js. A runtime provides the necessary components for JS execution like:
- JS Engine (V8 in Chrome and Node.js)
- Runtime libraries and APIs for file system and networking etc ...
- The event loop and task queues
Enter Node.js
Node.js was released in 2009 to address the limitation of traditional web servers like Apache that struggled with handling large number of simultaneous connections due to blocking I/O model. At the time, Node.js allowed developers to handle thousands of concurrent connections by introducing an event-driven non-blocking I/O model, which makes Node suitable for real-time applications and scalable servers.
A year later, npm was introduced to handle and simplify dependencies management for Node.js projects as the ecosystem grew significantly. Later, npm became the default package manager for Node.js by making code sharing and modular development more practical.
Since then, Node became the most used runtime powering millions of applications thanks to a unified JS everywhere architecture for both frontend and backend applications. It matured as a steady, widely adopted backend server, providing:
- Extensive packages thanks to the npm ecosystem
- Enterprise-level trust and adoption
- Continuous integration of modern JS patterns standards
However, Node.js has notable limitations:
- Single threaded nature, which limits performance for CPU intensive operations
- Legacy callback-based pattern; having multiple nested callbacks leads to hard to maintain code
- Unstable API changes
- Memory usage
- Security issues
The security-first alternative: Deno
Deno was developed by Ryan Dahl, the original Node creator, in 2018 to address several issues and design choices in Node.js. It's built on V8 engine and written in Rust.
Deno developers aimed for a more secure, modern runtime environment by avoiding complexities and security issues in Node.js.
By doing that, Deno provides:
- Incorporates modern JS features like Promises and async/await
- Creates a sandboxed environment with explicit permission for file system access
- Being TypeScript native
On the other hand, Deno is still:
- Lacking maturity
- Has a long learning curve
- Small community
The speedster: Bun
Bun is designed to be a drop-in replacement for Node.js, built to be fast as it's based on JavaScriptCore (unlike Node.js and Deno) and written in Zig.
It was introduced in 2023, and intended to be fast, high-performance runtime with faster startup times and excellent developer experience.
Bun provides:
- An all-in-one tools set (bundler, test runner, package manager)
- Native JS, TypeScript and JSX support without external transpilers
- Faster performance in common tasks compared to Node.js
Although, Bun is still in early stages compared to Node and Deno, with smaller community.
Comparison
| Feature | Node.js | Deno | Bun |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Moderate (slower startup and dependency install) | Faster startup and runtime | Fastest (blazing fast; written in Zig) |
| Ecosystem Size | Huge (largest npm ecosystem) | Growing ecosystem, smaller than Node.js | Rapidly growing but smaller than Node.js |
| TypeScript Support | Experimental/native transpile requires config or tools like ts-node | Native support, zero config | Native support, zero config |
| Security Model | Low by default; experimental permission model available | Secure by default: sandbox, explicit permissions for file system and network access | Moderate; no default sandbox or permission control yet |
| Maturity | Most mature and widely adopted (12+ years) | Moderately mature since 2020 | Newest (released 2023), rapidly evolving |
Which Should You use?
It depends on what you are building; For enterprise-scale, Node.js remains the wise choice; it's mature, stabel and backed with massive community. Building something security-critical? Deno's ability to provide sandboxed environments is a plus comparing to Node.js.
If performance and modern tooling are your priority, Bun is a worthy choice.
Honorable mentions
The runtimes landscape extends beyond this trio. Different contexts demand specific solutions such as Edge computing or serverless functions. That's where runtimes like Cloudflare Workers, AWS lambdas, Google Cloud Functions are used to run JS in a serverless environments with rapid startup times and scalability.
IoT and embedded systems also have their runtimes, like JerryScript and DukTape, that are optimized for microcontrollers and resource restricted devices.
Conclusion
There is no clear winner here, each runtime is optimized for specific needs and contexts. This specificity and competition drives innovation and pushes features forward as for example how Node.js announced native TypeScript support (as it relied on external transpilers previously), Bun's native support for WebAssembly, and Deno's ability to run JavaScript and TypeScript code in a secure sandboxed environment.
Photo by Patrick Konior on Unsplash
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