Why I Switched to Bun (And Haven't Looked Back)

I resisted the Bun hype for a long time. "It's just another runtime," I told myself. "Node is fine."

Then I actually tried it.

The Speed Is Real

I'm not exaggerating when I say my install times dropped by ~80%. A project that took npm install about 45 seconds to hydrate now finishes in under 8 seconds with bun install.

Same with test runs. My Jest suite took ~12s. With Bun's native test runner: ~2.1s.

These aren't benchmarks from a marketing page — these are my actual projects.

The DX Is Genuinely Better

Bun ships as a single binary. No separate tsc, no ts-node dance. Just:

bun run server.ts

TypeScript. Out of the box. No config. It just runs.

What About Compatibility?

This was my main concern. And honestly... it's mostly fine now. The Node.js compatibility layer has matured significantly. The only friction I hit was with some native addons that haven't published Bun-compatible builds yet.

For 95% of web development work? You won't notice a difference — except everything being faster.

Should You Switch?

If you're starting a new project: yes, absolutely try Bun.

If you're migrating an existing project: test it, but budget an afternoon for edge cases.

The ecosystem is moving fast. Bun isn't replacing Node tomorrow, but it's making Node's slowness increasingly hard to justify.