Replacements for express

Express has been the industry standard for years, but the ecosystem has shifted toward ESM-first, type-safe, and runtime-agnostic frameworks that offer significantly better performance and developer experience.

h3

h3 is a minimal H(TTP) framework built for high performance and portability.

Example:

import express from 'express'
import { H3, defineHandler, toNodeHandler } from 'h3'
import { createServer } from 'node:http'

const app = express() 
const app = new H3() 

app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello world')) 
app.get('/', defineHandler(() => 'Hello world')) 

app.listen(3000) 
createServer(toNodeHandler(app)).listen(3000) 

tinyhttp

tinyhttp is designed to be a drop-in replacement remaining compatible with many Express middlewares.

Example:

import express from 'express'
import { App } from '@tinyhttp/app'

const app = express() 
const app = new App() 

app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello world'))

app.listen(3000)

hono

hono is a small, simple, and fast web framework for the Edges.

Example:

import express from 'express'
import { Hono } from 'hono'

const app = express() 
const app = new Hono() 

app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello world')) 
app.get('/', (context) => context.text('Hello world')) 

export default app 

elysia

If you are using Bun, elysia is often the best choice as it is specifically optimized for the Bun runtime.

Example:

import express from 'express'
import { Elysia } from 'elysia'

const app = express() 
const app = new Elysia() 

app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello world')) 
app.get('/', () => 'Hello world') 

app.listen(3000)