Bun 1.0 Has Landed! Time to Ditch Node.js?
Bun is a new JavaScript runtime built from scratch to serve the modern JavaScript ecosystem.
In this article, I'll give you the reasons I'm bullish on Bun being a real competitor to Node.js.
Develop, test, run, and bundle JavaScript & TypeScript projects—all with Bun. Bun is an all-in-one JavaScript runtime & toolkit designed for speed, complete with a bundler, test runner, and Node.js-compatible package manager.
Node.js is the main reason the JavaScript ecosystem has flourished over the years.
And, occasionally, we see an attempt at dethroning the king, like when we saw Deno a few years ago (which was created by Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js).
We didn't see a great adoption of Deno even with its "benefits."
So what makes Bun a worthy challenger?
Just a couple of days ago, Bun 1.0 officially launched with their announcement on YouTube:
When I finished watching the video, it pushed me over the edge of my curiosity to actually try it out.
Why I'm excited about Bun
There are three things that excite me about Bun.
It's all about simplicity! You'll see how easy it is to use in your existing projects in a minute.
It comes with a massive performance boost to your runtime.
Last but not least, it's a complete development tool with a bundler, transpiler, and a insanely fast package manager.
Here are some benchmarks I've taken from the Bun.sh homepage using Remix as an example:
In my opinion, Bun 1.0 is an exciting new addition to the server-side JavaScript ecosystem, and I'll be actively testing it within my own projects and deployments.
It’s fast, efficient, and takes us back to the roots of simple concurrency while pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
How to use it
To install Bun on macOS and Linux run:
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
You can check out alternative installation options here.
And you can start getting performance in your existing project by simply running bun run instead of npm run.
For example, if you have a Next.js project, just run the following:
bun run dev
And as easily as that, you have started using Bun in one of your projects. ✨
I want to finish up with a big shoutout to Jarred Sumner, the brain behind Bun, for creating this awesome tool!
Give it a try, and let me know what you think!
Happy coding! ✌️
