Discover Bun - A Faster, Modern JavaScript Runtime

Bun is the new Javascript Runtime built from scratch to serve the modern Javascript ecosystem.

But do we really need more Javascript tools?

Well, the Javascript Space is completely different from 15 years ago when NodeJS was first released.

• Yearly new releases of ECMAScript.
• Typescript becoming the norm because of the enhanced Developer experience.
• Use of JSX in almost every development framework.

These have forced the Javascript runtimes to become lighter and faster.

Deno - Modern runtime that becamse Jurasic

A little bit ago, we got Deno. While it is just No-De reversed as De-No, it does more than that.

It's features are listed on their website :

But, Deno essentially failed, because :

Deno only really sported "minor features" from a users perspective. It had a cleaner codebase, used up-to-date best-practices, and had better security, but those things are really only "features" to a user, not a product in themselves.

The Technology Behind Bun

Bun is a Javascript Runtime. But what does it mean actually?
It starts with an Engine - The Component of a runtime that runs the Javascript code.

We all know V8, the JS Engine behind Chrome and NodeJS.
But Bun uses something different - JavascriptCore.

Javascript Core is a Performance🚀 focused solution built by Apple 🍎 for the Safari Browser

The JS engine cannot work on it's own. So it combines with external APIs and message Queues and the infamous Event loop to create a Javascript Runtime.

In Bun, this is implemented from scratch using Zig which is a low-level general purpose language like C or Rust for building fast applications.

The above implementation provides better performance and memory management during Start and Runtimes, combined with the promise of mind-blowing speed, you have a real competitor of NodeJS.

Features of Bun

Bun has a lot of great features that makes it worthy.

1. Support for NodeJS packages 🎯

Bun is like a Drop-In replacement for NodeJS thanks to the native implementation of 100s of Node modules

Bun also uses the package.json file for dependencies, so less learning curve from NodeJS and bun install is really fast 👇

2. Built in Typescript Support and it's fast ⚡

Before the dawn of Bun, running typescript was tedious and slow. Bun comes with built in support for running Typescript in your projects and makes it faster.

3. Support for both CommonJS and ESModules(MyFavorite) 🎉

Remember those days where you had to convert your project from the old require syntax to import syntax? Some libraries still not support the import syntax perfectly with Typescript.

This all goes away with Bun. You can write either or both.

4. Built-In Testing Support 💡

You love the Test driven development? Or are you just starting with it? It doesn't matter. Because you do not have to go and learn a new testing framework to do the job.

Bun comes with built-in testing support, and so it is much faster from the other ones out there.

Enough talk, let's see some examples of using Bun 📌

Installing Bun

Installing Bun is as simple as below :

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

Setting up a Server

Ready to develop your own service? Create a new file : server.ts and add the following code :

Start the server

Now to start listening to requests, run the following command(no intermediate step of converting to .js separately) :

bun index.tsx

React Components with Bun

Bun supports .jsx and .tsx files out of the box. Bun's internal transpiler converts JSX syntax into vanilla JavaScript before execution.

It also works with the above React component.

With the above features and many more, Bun is ready to become the new norm in the Javascript runtime market.

Do you want to use Bun in your projects? Checkout their official website for Getting Started and installation guides here : Bun.js