Hono vs Express, why Hono wins (redeployed)

Why Hono is better than Express

Six reasons teams are leaving Express behind.

⚡

Built on web standards

Hono uses the standard Request and Response objects, the same ones browsers and Workers use. Express invented its own non-standard req and res twelve years ago.

🌐

Runs everywhere

One codebase, every runtime. Node, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda, Vercel, Netlify, Fastly. Express is Node only.

📚

TypeScript first

Routes, params, JSON bodies, and middleware are end-to-end typed. With the RPC client you get type safety from server to client without code generation.

🚀

Fast by default

The RegExpRouter resolves routes in linear time. Benchmarks consistently put Hono multiples ahead of Express on raw throughput.

🧹

Batteries that match the year

JWT, JWK, CORS, ETag, basic auth, bearer auth, JSX renderer, validators, streaming, server-sent events. All first party, all tree-shakeable.

🛡️

Actively maintained

Express 5 took nearly a decade to ship. Hono ships meaningful releases every few weeks with a healthy contributor base.

Side by side

A quick scan of where each one lands.

Feature	Hono	Express
Bundle size	~14kB gzipped tiny	~570kB installed heavy
Runtime support	Node, Bun, Deno, Workers, Lambda, Vercel universal	Node only locked in
TypeScript	Native, end-to-end typed first class	Community @types, partial bolt-on
Web standard Request and Response	Yes standards	No, custom req and res proprietary
Async middleware	Native async and await clean	Callbacks plus next() legacy
Validation	Built in with Zod, Valibot, ArkType included	Bring your own manual
JSX server rendering	Built in included	Pick a template engine extra
Type-safe RPC client	Yes, hc() included	No missing
Release cadence	Frequent active	Express 5 took nine years slow

Same API, less code

A typed, validated JSON endpoint in both frameworks.

hono 15 lines, fully typed

import { Hono } from 'hono'
import { zValidator } from '@hono/zod-validator'
import { z } from 'zod'

const app = new Hono()

const schema = z.object({
  name: z.string().min(1)
})

app.post(
  '/hello',
  zValidator('json', schema),
  (c) => c.json({ msg: `hi ${c.req.valid('json').name}` })
)

export default app

express more wiring, no types

const express = require('express')
const { z } = require('zod')

const app = express()
app.use(express.json())

const schema = z.object({
  name: z.string().min(1)
})

app.post('/hello', (req, res) => {
  const parsed = schema.safeParse(req.body)
  if (!parsed.success) return res.status(400).json(parsed.error)
  res.json({ msg: `hi ${parsed.data.name}` })
})

app.listen(3000)

Express had a great run.
Hono is what comes next.