Oven fresh buns 👨‍🍳

Thursday, April 10th 2025

What is Bun?

Bun is a JavaScript runtime that is blazingly fast, lightweight, and easy to use. It was created in Zig by Jarred Sumner and has been gaining a lot of attention in the JavaScript community for its performance and features. Bun is designed to be a drop-in replacement for Node.js, but it also has some unique features that make it stand out.

Trying Bun

As a software engineer, I'm constantly on the lookout for tools that make development faster, cleaner, and more enjoyable. Two weeks ago, I stumbled across Bun and decided to give it a try. I had heard the buzz, but I was skeptical.

I mean, how many times have we seen new JavaScript stuff pop up, only to fade into obscurity? But after a few hours of tinkering, I was genuinely impressed.

Why I love it so much

Bun isn't just a runtime, but for some reason it has everything you need to build cool stuff.

  • Blazingly fast: Startup and execution times blew me away. It made my scripts feel snappy in a way Node just doesn’t.
  • Incredible tooling: You get built-in bundling, testing, packaging (and a npx replacement called bunx), websockets, templating (with React too), and native bindings for databases!
  • Drop-in replacement: It just works. (Almost, not everything is supported yet, but the most important stuff is.) You can likely run your existing Node.js code with Bun without any changes.
  • Great documentation: The docs are clear, concise, and well-organized, making it easy to get started and find what you need.
  • Active community: The Bun community is vibrant and growing, with lots of resources, tutorials, and support available.
  • Cross-platform: Bun works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it accessible to developers regardless of their operating system.

Should You Switch?

If you're deep in a Node or Deno setup, I'm not saying you need to rewrite everything overnight. But I am saying you should give Bun a shot on your next small project or script.

The performance and tooling are genuinely impressive, and it could be a game-changer for your development workflow.

UPDATE (04.03.2026): I'm using bun for all my projects now and I couldn't be happier. It's been a game-changer for my development workflow, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use JavaScript runtime.