31.8k stars · MIT · v4.13.8 (2026-09-15), read from /releases/latest; the GitHub date carried no year and falls in the past, so it is this year · Track this in Scout
A small, fast web framework for JavaScript built on Web Standards, so one copy of the code runs on Node.js, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers and AWS Lambda.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
A web framework for JavaScript and TypeScript. A framework is a starting kit that handles the boring parts of answering a web request, so you only write the part that is yours. Hono is built on the same request and response objects that browsers already use, which is why one copy of the code runs on Node.js, on Bun, on Deno, on Cloudflare Workers and on AWS Lambda without being rewritten.What it is good for. Anyone building a small API (an address that other programs call, rather than a page a person reads) who does not want to be tied to one hosting company. The problem it removes is the rewrite you do when you move hosts. A short line about Grasppy: its main backend is Python and this does not replace that, but the React side often needs a tiny server of its own for sign-in callbacks and webhooks, and this is the smallest honest way to have one.
- The smallest preset is under 12 kB, so it starts almost instantly, which matters on services that charge by the millisecond.
- The same code runs on five or six different hosts without change.
- MIT licence, and a release most weeks.
- JavaScript and TypeScript only. There is nothing here for a Python or Go project.
- Running everywhere means some libraries written for Node.js will not work, and you find that out late.
- Express has twenty years of answers written about it and this does not. You will read the documentation more often.
- expressjs/express
The framework almost every Node.js tutorial is written against, and it is slower and tied to Node.js alone.
Track this in Scout - fastify/fastify
A faster Node.js framework with a large plugin system and schema-based validation, and it also runs only on Node.js.
Track this in Scout - elysiajs/elysia
A TypeScript framework with very strong type checking from the server to the client, built for the Bun runtime rather than for many hosts.
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# Start a new project. It asks which host you are targeting. npm create hono@latest my-app cd my-app npm install npm run dev # Or add it to something you already have: npm install hono
