Deno vs. Node.js: Which is better?

Node.is is still the most widely used JavaScript runtime environment, but Deno is more secure and brings modern advantages. Compare Deno and Node.js and decide which is right for your next project.

In this article, you’ll learn about Node.js and Deno, the differences between CommonJS and ECMAScript modules, using TypeScript with Deno, and faster deployments with Deno Deploy. We'll conclude with notes to help you decide between using Node.js or Deno for your next development project.

What is Node.js?

Node.js is a cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that is useful for both servers and desktop applications. It runs a single-threaded event loop registered with the system to handle connections, and each new connection causes a JavaScript callback function to fire. The callback function can handle requests with non-blocking I/O calls. If necessary, it can spawn threads from a pool to execute blocking or CPU-intensive operations and to balance the load across CPU cores.

Node's approach to scaling with callback functions requires less memory to handle more connections than most competitive architectures that scale with threads, including Apache HTTP Server, the various Java application servers, IIS and ASP.NET, and Ruby on Rails.

Node applications aren't limited to pure JavaScript. You can use any language that transpiles to JavaScript; for example, TypeScript and CoffeeScript. Node.js incorporates the Google Chrome V8 JavaScript engine, which supports ECMAScript 2015 (ES6) syntax without any need for an ES6-to-ES5 transpiler such as Babel.

Much of Node's utility comes from its large package library, which is accessible from the npm command. NPM, the Node Package Manager, is part of the standard Node.js installation, although it has its own website.

The JavaScript-based Node.js platform was introduced by Ryan Dahl in 2009. It was developed as a more scalable alternative to the Apache HTTP Server for Linux and MacOS. NPM, written by Isaac Schlueter, launched in 2010. A native Windows version of Node.js debuted in 2011.

What is Deno?

Deno is a secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript that has been extended for WebAssembly, JavaScript XML (JSX), and its TypeScript extension, TSX. Developed by the creator of Node.js, Deno is an attempt to reimagine Node to leverage advances in JavaScript since 2009, including the TypeScript compiler.

Like Node.js, Deno is essentially a shell around the Google V8 JavaScript engine. Unlike Node, it includes the TypeScript compiler in its executable image. Dahl, who created both runtimes, has said that Node.js suffers from three major issues: a poorly designed module system based on centralized distribution; lots of legacy APIs that must be supported; and lack of security. Deno fixes all three problems.

Node's module system problem was solved by an update in mid-2022.

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