What is Bun.js? The Potential Node.js Replacement PyPixel

Recently, the buzz of Bun.js has been heard in the developer community. I found someone talking about Bun.js recently and started searching for in-depth information on the same as I was curious. In this article, we are going to look into the new rumored Node.js killer – Bun.js.

What is Bun.js?

According to Bun.js’ official website – Bun.js is an all-in-one Javascript runtime environment and toolkit that is designed for speed. It is a compiled toolkit for building, testing, debugging, and running JavaScript and TypeScript apps.

Bun ships as a single executable aptly named bun making it incredibly convenient to get started with but what truly sets Bun apart is its runtime. It’s written in Zig and powered by JavaScriptCore under the hood, resulting in significantly reduced startup times and memory usage compared to traditional Node.js environments.

One of Bun.js’ standout features is its role as a drop-in replacement for Node.js. This means you can seamlessly switch from Node.js to Bun.js without rewriting your code. Bun.js natively implements hundreds of Node.js and Web APIs, ensuring that your existing projects will run smoothly.

Fundamentally, Bun.js is all about improving performance, reducing complexity, and boosting developer productivity. It extends the JavaScriptCore engine, originally designed for Safari, with native-speed functionality implemented in Zig. This means Bun.js starts up and runs quickly, a crucial advantage as computing continues to move towards edge computing.

If you’re a TypeScript enthusiast, you’ll love how Bun.js handles TypeScript files. It can directly execute .ts and .tsx files, just like vanilla JavaScript, without requiring additional configuration. Plus, it supports features that TypeScript doesn’t offer by default, such as extensioned imports, top-level await, and export conditions.

Also, Bun.js simplifies your development toolkit by eliminating the need for various tools you might have used before. Now you can forget about Node.js itself, npx (Bun’s version, bunx, is five times faster), nodemon (Bun has built-in watch mode), dotenv and cross-env (Bun reads .env files by default), and even transpilers like tsc, Babel, and ts-node.

Bun.js is not just a runtime; it’s a JavaScript bundler with outstanding performance and an esbuild-compatible plugin API. This means you can say goodbye to separate bundlers like esbuild, webpack, parcel, and rollup. Bun.js includes a Node.js-compatible package manager that’s significantly faster than npm, yarn, and pnpm. If you have an existing Node.js project with a package.json file, using bun install can significantly speed up your workflow.

Testing your code becomes a breeze with Bun.js. It’s compatible with Jest, offering support for snapshot testing, mocking, and code coverage. No need to deal with separate testing libraries and configurations.

In essence, Bun.js is a complete toolkit for building JavaScript applications. It integrates all the necessary tools, from package management to testing, in a cohesive and efficient manner. This streamlines your development process, eliminates redundancy, and provides a best-in-class developer experience.

Performance Metrics of Bun.js

According to its official website, Bun.js can handle 66,706 HTTP requests per second which is huge, right? as compared to other competitors such as deno.serve() which can only handle 32,921 requests per second, whereas node can handle 13,967 requests per second.

In terms of the WebSocket chat server (Messages sent per second), Bun.js stands out with 1,098,870 messages per second leaving deno.serve() behind which can handle 512,000 messages per second and for ws(node.js) its just 179,185.

The performance of Bun.js looks stunning and is really something worth trying.

Is Bun.js Production Ready?

As of now, Bun.js is stable and production-ready for macOS and Linux builds, making it a compelling choice for your next server-side JavaScript project. While on Windows it is still in an experimental phase but an experimental native build is available.

You can install Bun v1.0.0 with the following command:

$ curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Conclusion

In conclusion, with its compatibility, performance enhancements, and consolidated toolkit, Bun.js is a game-changer that’s worth exploring for developers seeking a more streamlined and efficient workflow. I really hope you got a good overview of what capabilities Bun.js holds.

To get started with bun.js, you can visit the official repository on GitHub, where you’ll find installation instructions, documentation, and examples. You can head over there and start playing with this amazing build. I’m sure you’re going to love it. Thanks for reading till the end.

Also Read – Django vs. Node.js: Which is better for you? (10 Differences)