Let's face it: we've all waited way too long for npm install to finish. Whether you're racing against a deadline or just impatient (like me), slow install times are quite annoying.
Enter Bun, the super fast alternative to npm that's making quite a stir in the JavaScript world. 🚀
(If you clicked on this post because of the cover image, now you know — it was a reference to Bun).
What is Bun?
Bun isn't just another package manager — it's a performance-focused runtime built from the ground up with speed in mind. Instead of relying on Node.js's V8 (which is also used by Chromium), Bun uses JavaScriptCore (from WebKit), giving it an edge in raw performance. This translates to dependency installations that are up to 29x faster than npm, 17x faster than pnpm, and 33x faster than Yarn. Yes, you read that right: 29 times faster. 🔥
Why is Bun so Fast?
- Bun's core is written in Zig, a low-level language that ensures efficient memory management.
- Bun doesn't need separate tools for bundling, transpiling, or hot reloading, as they're all built-in, reducing overhead.
- Unlike npm's
package-lock.json, Bun usesbun.lockb, designed for speed and minimal file conflicts.
Key Features of Bun:
-
Blazing-fast Installs: Run
bun installand see your dependencies appear almost instantly. -
Built-in Bundler: No more juggling Webpack or Vite — it's all here. Bun builds 188x faster (over one hundred times faster) than rollup with terser and about 2x faster than modern builders like
esbuild. - Faster CI/CD: Say goodbye to painfully slow dependency setups in your pipelines.
- Secure: Bun only runs lifecycle scripts for trusted dependencies, unless explicitly approved.
Getting Started with Bun
Switching to Bun is super simple. Support for Windows was recently released (see bun.sh), but here's how to use it on macOS and Linux:
1. Install Bun:
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
2. Remove existing lock files:
rm package-lock.json yarn.lock pnpm-lock.yaml
3. Remove node_modules:
rm -rf node_modules
4. Install dependencies:
bun install
Prepare to be amazed. 🤯
My own experience
I heard a lot about Bun and couldn't resist trying it.
I've already tested pnpm (pretty good!), yarn (alright), etc. before, but Bun had some (extremely!) awesome looking benchmarks!
Well, I opened up a giant top-secret project (I'm posting about that soon! 🤫) with lots of dependencies. First, let's try npm install… Oh, well, it froze. So let's cancel it and try again (npm gets a head-start!):
To be fair, 421 dependencies is a lot (now none of you will want to use my app). But let's see how Bun handles this (no head-starts!):
So npm took 20 seconds. Bun took 0.7 seconds.
WOW! I was impressed. You will be, too.
Final Thoughts
Bun isn't just faster — it's a productivity booster. If you're tired of staring at a terminal, waiting for npm to do its thing, give Bun a try. It's simple, secure, and stupidly fast. 🍞
Bun isn't just a package manager!
Bun includes a testing framework that’s several times faster than Vite and Jest, a compiler, executable builder, and more!
Bun reduces dependency size (like pnpm)!
You might have heard good things about pnpm, which uses symlinks to reduce the size of node_modules folders (which are usually gigantic).
Bun optimizes node_modules size too, and it's faster (and easier to type 😂).
Discuss!
This is a #discuss post! I kept it fairly short because I want you to comment and tell me what you think. What package manager do you use? Have you tried Bun? (Do you even use JavaScript)? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
Benchmarks taken from Bun's website. See https://bun.sh.
Cover image credit: WikiPedia
Top comments (18)
I am use npm. But I do not install npm directly, I am using nvm that handel multiple version of npm. It's so simple to handel multiple project those are build using different version of node without docker container. Now my question is if I have multiple project those are use different version of node then can I handel it with bun?
nvmdoesn't makenpmany faster (it's just differentnpmenvironments) but it is certainly very useful!When I used
npmI usednvmtoo.I don't think there is a Bun equivalent (to be clear:
nvmis not bynpmand does not come with it; it's a third-party thing), though you can globally installbunwithnpmand use different versions ofbunthat you have installed in your differentnpms. (Obviously that's pretty annoying to deal with).I have seen this, but have not tried it yet:
Bum - Bun Version Manager ⚡
Bum - Bun Version Manager
Introducing Bum, a fast Bun version manager written in Rust from scratch
How to install:
Unix
Windows
I only own a Mac, so I can't test at all if Windows is working, and I can't write a script to auto-install on Windows as well. So here are a few instructions on how to install Bum for Windows:
As Bum is not tested at all on Windows, it may not works. If it's the case please open an issue and I'll be glad to fix it.
How to use:
Perhaps I'll make my own solution for this.
I am 💀
my choice is volt.sh
an awesome tool for node management
In my experience, NVM works great. Can volt manage Bun versions?
i dont use npm just plain JS :)
i barely even code :P
'Vanilla JS'. I do that every so often…
At my old company, we used to have Front-End meetups and one person broke down the install time differences and I've been convinced since then. But I have yet to try it out. 🤦🏿♂️ I think you have finally pushed me to give it a go. 🙌🏿
Yay! :D
You'll love it :)
Thank you for sharing, I've been there too
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