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Hono vs Fastify
Trust Score comparison · March 2026
Signal Comparison
1.2M / wknpm downloads3M / wk
250 commitsCommits (90d)120 commits
22k ★GitHub stars33k ★
500 q'sStack Overflow5k q's
GrowingCommunityHigh
HonoFastify
Key Differences
| Factor | Hono | Fastify |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Free tier | — | — |
| Open Source | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| TypeScript | ✓ | ✓ |
Pick Hono if…
- Cloudflare Workers or edge runtimes where bundle size matters
- Building fast REST APIs with a minimal, Express-style API in TypeScript
- Multi-runtime apps that need to run on Bun, Deno, and Node.js
Pick Fastify if…
- Performance-critical Node.js APIs where Express is a bottleneck
- JSON-heavy APIs that benefit from schema-validated serialization
- Teams who want Express familiarity with far better performance
Side-by-side Quick Start
Hono
import { Hono } from 'hono';
const app = new Hono();
app.get('/', (c) => c.text('Hello Hono!'));
app.get('/user/:id', (c) => c.json({ id: c.req.param('id') }));
export default app;Fastify
import Fastify from 'fastify';
const app = Fastify({ logger: true });
app.get('/', async (request, reply) => {
return { hello: 'world' };
});
await app.listen({ port: 3000 });Community Verdict
Based on upvoted notes🏆
Hono wins this comparison
Trust Score 84 vs 83 · 1-point difference
Hono leads on Trust Score with stronger signal data across downloads and community health. That said, the other tool is worth considering if your use case matches its specific strengths above.