Bun Is Taking Over JavaScript (Here's How to Start)

Bun replaces Node.js, npm, Jest, and your TypeScript compiler with a single binary. After Anthropic acquired the runtime in December 2025, it now powers Claude Code and reaches millions of developers daily.

The Bun JavaScript runtime benchmarks are real but nuanced. Here's the honest performance story and a 5-minute getting-started tutorial.

The Anthropic Acquisition Changed Everything#

In December 2025, Anthropic acquired Bun. The runtime had raised $26M in venture capital but generated zero revenue.

Jarred Sumner's original plan was a hosting platform that never shipped. The VC-funded runtime was running on borrowed time, and everyone in the JS community knew it.

Anthropic buying Bun wasn't charity. They needed a fast, lightweight runtime for Claude Code, their AI coding agent, and Bun fit that need exactly.

Now Bun powers Claude Code's native installer, the Claude Agent SDK, and the growing ecosystem of AI coding agents built on Anthropic's stack. A Claude Code bot is currently the GitHub user with the most merged PRs in Bun's repository. That tells you where the investment is going.

Bun stays MIT-licensed and open-source. The current version is v1.3.11 (March 2026), with monthly releases shipping faster than at any point in the project's history.

Bun Performance: The Honest Numbers#

I need to lead with the caveat before the big numbers, because the benchmarks are misleading without it.

Synthetic benchmarks show Bun handling 52,000 HTTP requests per second versus Node.js at 14,000 (both using Express-style routing). Cold starts clock in at 8-15ms versus Node's 40-120ms.

Package installs are where things get absurd: installing React takes 2 seconds on Bun, 18 on npm. A monorepo with 1,847 dependencies installs in 47 seconds instead of 28 minutes.

Those numbers are real. But here's what matters for production: real-world apps with databases all converge to roughly 12,000 RPS regardless of runtime. Your bottleneck is PostgreSQL, not your JavaScript engine.

Where Bun's speed actually changes your workflow is developer experience. Faster installs, instant TypeScript execution, and sub-15ms starts on AWS Lambda (156ms versus 245ms) add up across a team of ten over six months.

Why Developers Are Switching#

The killer feature isn't raw speed. It's replacing five or six separate tools with one binary.

Bun replaces your entire JavaScript toolchain in one binary:

• Runtime (replaces Node.js)
• Package manager (replaces npm/yarn/pnpm)
• Bundler (replaces webpack/esbuild)
• Test runner (replaces Jest/Vitest)
• TypeScript compiler (replaces ts-node/tsc)

You install one thing. It runs your .ts files, your tests, and your builds. The mental overhead drops to near zero.

X (Twitter), Midjourney, and Stripe use Bun in production. Tailwind CSS adopted it for their build tooling. The runtime now has over 7M monthly downloads.

Compatibility is the reason adoption works at all. Bun implements 95-98% of the Node.js API surface, and most existing code runs without changes.

You bun install your dependencies, bun run your scripts, and things work. I migrated a Next.js API project in under ten minutes with zero code changes.

Getting Started With Bun#

Install Bun with one command. On macOS and Linux:

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

On Windows (PowerShell):

irm bun.sh/install.ps1 | iex

Verify it works:

bun --version
# 1.3.11

Create a new project:

bun init
# Creates package.json, tsconfig.json, index.ts

Here's a complete HTTP server using Bun.serve():

Bun.serve({
  port: 3000,
  fetch(req) {
    const url = new URL(req.url);
    if (url.pathname === "/api/health") {
      return Response.json({ status: "ok", runtime: "bun" });
    }
    return new Response("Hello from Bun!");
  },
});

console.log("Server running on http://localhost:3000");

Run it with hot reload:

bun --watch index.ts

No ts-node, no nodemon, no tsconfig fiddling. It just runs.

For a production-grade API, pair Bun with Hono, the lightweight framework built for edge runtimes:

import { Hono } from "hono";

const app = new Hono();

app.get("/", (c) => c.json({ message: "Hono + Bun" }));
app.get("/users/:id", (c) => {
  return c.json({ id: c.req.param("id") });
});

export default app;

Testing is built in too. No Jest, no Vitest, no config files:

import { expect, test, describe } from "bun:test";

describe("math", () => {
  test("adds numbers", () => {
    expect(2 + 2).toBe(4);
  });
});

bun test

If you use CLI tools in your daily workflow, Bun's single-binary approach will feel familiar. One tool, many jobs.

Migration Gotchas and Fixes#

About 34% of projects hit at least one compatibility issue during migration. Most have simple fixes.

The most common breaks and their fixes:

• bcrypt (native C++ bindings) : replace with Bun.password, same algorithms natively
• better-sqlite3 (same issue) : use bun:sqlite, Bun's built-in SQLite driver
• canvas : no workaround at all. Stay on Node for that service.
• argon2 : no workaround yet. Use bcryptjs as an alternative.
• sharp : WASM fallback works, but test your specific transforms

Docker images are another pain point. The oven/bun base image is 450MB versus Node's 180MB slim image. Use a multi-stage build to keep production images lean:

FROM oven/bun:1.3.11 AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json bun.lock ./
RUN bun install --frozen-lockfile
COPY . .
RUN bun build ./src/index.ts --target=bun --outdir=./dist

FROM oven/bun:1.3.11-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build /app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=build /app/node_modules ./node_modules
CMD ["bun", "run", "dist/index.js"]

One Hacker News commenter flagged that "Docker hangs with Express servers and memory leaks with Prisma" are still reported. Worth testing your specific stack before committing.

When to Stay on Node.js#

New projects should default to the Bun JavaScript runtime in 2026. But migration is a different question.

Stay on Node if you need enterprise LTS guarantees. Node 22 LTS has a support timeline through April 2027, with a security-fixes-only window extending further.

Bun's release cadence is fast, but it doesn't offer long-term support branches yet. If your compliance team needs that paperwork, Node is the answer.

Heavy native C++ addons are the other deal-breaker. If your app leans on node:cluster for multi-process scaling, that API doesn't exist in Bun yet.

Bun uses a different concurrency model based on worker threads.

The honest take: if your team's existing toolchain works fine, and you're not feeling pain from slow installs or TypeScript compilation, there's no rush. Bun will be better in six months. Migrate when you have a reason, not because of benchmark screenshots on Twitter.

For teams evaluating their Windows development setup, Bun now ships native Windows binaries and works well with PowerShell and WSL2. One less reason to wait.

TL;DR: Use Bun for new projects. Use bun install as a drop-in package manager for existing ones. Migrate the runtime when you hit a specific pain point or start a new service. The acquisition by Anthropic means this project has funding, direction, and staying power for the first time.