hono

What is hono?

Hono is a small, simple, and fast web framework for building web applications and APIs in Node.js. It is designed to be lightweight and efficient, making it suitable for high-performance applications.

What are hono's main functionalities?

Basic Routing

Hono allows you to define routes for your web application. In this example, a basic GET route is defined that responds with 'Hello, Hono!' when accessed.

const { Hono } = require('hono');
const app = new Hono();

app.get('/', (c) => c.text('Hello, Hono!'));

app.listen(3000);

Middleware Support

Hono supports middleware, allowing you to execute code before your route handlers. This example demonstrates a simple logger middleware that logs the request method and URL.

const { Hono } = require('hono');
const app = new Hono();

const logger = (c, next) => {
  console.log(`${c.req.method} ${c.req.url}`);
  return next();
};

app.use(logger);

app.get('/', (c) => c.text('Hello, Hono!'));

app.listen(3000);

Error Handling

Hono provides a way to handle errors globally. In this example, an error is thrown in the route handler, and the global error handler responds with a 500 status code and a message.

const { Hono } = require('hono');
const app = new Hono();

app.get('/', (c) => {
  throw new Error('Something went wrong!');
});

app.onError((err, c) => {
  c.status(500);
  return c.text('Internal Server Error');
});

app.listen(3000);

Other packages similar to hono

express

Express is a widely-used web framework for Node.js, known for its simplicity and flexibility. It offers a robust set of features for web and mobile applications, including routing, middleware support, and more. Compared to Hono, Express has a larger community and more extensive documentation, but Hono aims to be more lightweight and faster.

koa

Koa is a web framework designed by the team behind Express. It aims to be a smaller, more expressive, and more robust foundation for web applications and APIs. Koa uses async functions to help eliminate callback hell and improve error handling. Compared to Hono, Koa is more modern and has a different approach to middleware, using a stack-like structure.

fastify

Fastify is a web framework highly focused on providing the best developer experience with the least overhead and a powerful plugin architecture. It is designed for high performance and low overhead. Compared to Hono, Fastify is more feature-rich and has a more extensive ecosystem, but Hono aims to be simpler and more lightweight.

README

---

Hono - [炎] means flame🔥 in Japanese - is a small, simple, and ultrafast web framework for Cloudflare Workers, Deno, Bun, and others.

import { Hono } from 'hono'
const app = new Hono()

app.get('/', (c) => c.text('Hono!!'))

app.fire()

Features

• Ultrafast - the router does not use linear loops.
• Zero-dependencies - using only Service Worker and Web Standard API.
• Middleware - built-in middleware and ability to extend with your own middleware.
• TypeScript - first-class TypeScript support.
• Multi-platform - works on Cloudflare Workers, Fastly Compute@Edge, Deno, or Bun.

Benchmarks

Cloudflare Workers

• Machine: Apple MacBook Pro, 32 GiB, M1 Pro
• Scripts: benchmarks/handle-event

Hono is fastest, compared to other routers for Cloudflare Workers.

hono - trie-router(default) x 389,510 ops/sec ±3.16% (85 runs sampled)
hono - regexp-router x 452,290 ops/sec ±2.64% (84 runs sampled)
itty-router x 206,013 ops/sec ±3.39% (90 runs sampled)
sunder x 323,131 ops/sec ±0.75% (97 runs sampled)
worktop x 191,218 ops/sec ±2.70% (91 runs sampled)
Fastest is hono - regexp-router
✨  Done in 43.56s.

Deno

• Machine: Apple MacBook Pro, 32 GiB, M1 Pro, Deno v1.22.0
• Scripts: benchmarks/deno
• Method: autocannon -c 100 -d 40 -p 10 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/user/lookup/username/foo'

Hono is fastest, compared to other frameworks for Deno.

Framework	Version	Results
Hono - RegExpRouter	1.6.0	5118k requests in 40.02s, 865 MB read
Hono - TriRouter(default)	1.6.0	4932k requests in 40.02s, 833 MB read
Faster	5.7	3579k requests in 40.02s, 551 MB read
oak	10.5.1	2385k requests in 40.02s, 403 MB read
opine	2.2.0	1491k requests in 40.02s, 346 MB read

Another benchmark result: denosaurs/bench

Why so fast?

Routers used in Hono are really smart.

• TrieRouter(default) - Implemented with Trie tree structure.
• RegExpRouter - Match the route with using one big Regex made before dispatch.

Hono in 1 minute

A demonstration to create an application for Cloudflare Workers with Hono.

Not only fast

Hono is fast. But not only fast.

Write Less, do more

Built-in middleware make "Write Less, do more" in reality. You can use a lot of middleware without writing code from scratch. Below are examples.

• Basic Authentication
• Cookie parsing / serializing
• CORS
• ETag
• GraphQL Server
• html
• JSX
• JWT Authentication
• Logger
• Mustache template engine (Only for Cloudflare Workers)
• JSON pretty printing
• Serving static files (Only for Cloudflare Workers and Deno)

To enable logger and Etag middleware with just this code.

import { Hono } from 'hono'
import { etag } from 'hono/etag'
import { logger } from 'hono/logger'

const app = new Hono()
app.use('*', etag(), logger())

And, the routing of Hono is so flexible. It's easy to construct large web applications.

import { Hono } from 'hono'
import { basicAuth } from 'hono/basic-auth'

const v1 = new Hono()
v1.get('/posts', (c) => {
  return c.text('list posts')
})
  .post(basicAuth({ username, password }), (c) => {
    return c.text('created!', 201)
  })
  .get('/posts/:id', (c) => {
    const id = c.req.param('id')
    return c.text(`your id is ${id}`)
  })

const app = new Hono()
app.route('/v1', v1)

Web Standard

Request and Response object used in Hono are extensions of the Web Standard Fetch API. If you are familiar with that, you don't need to know more than that.

Developer Experience

Hono provides fine "Developer Experience". Easy access to Request/Response thanks to the Context object. Above all, Hono is written in TypeScript. So, Hono has "Types"!

For example, the named path parameters will be literal types.

Install

You can install Hono from the npm registry.

npm install hono

Methods

An instance of Hono has these methods.

• app.HTTP_METHOD([path,]handler|middleware...)
• app.all([path,]handler|middleware...)
• app.route(path, [app])
• app.use([path,]middleware)
• app.notFound(handler)
• app.onError(err, handler)
• app.fire()
• app.fetch(request, env, event)
• app.request(path, options)

Routing

Basic

// HTTP Methods
app.get('/', (c) => c.text('GET /'))
app.post('/', (c) => c.text('POST /'))
app.put('/', (c) => c.text('PUT /'))
app.delete('/', (c) => c.text('DELETE /'))

// Wildcard
app.get('/wild/*/card', (c) => {
  return c.text('GET /wild/*/card')
})

// Any HTTP methods
app.all('/hello', (c) => c.text('Any Method /hello'))

Named Parameter

app.get('/user/:name', (c) => {
  const name = c.req.param('name')
  ...
})

or all parameters at once:

app.get('/posts/:id/comment/:comment_id', (c) => {
  const { id, comment_id } = c.req.param()
  ...
})

Regexp

app.get('/post/:date{[0-9]+}/:title{[a-z]+}', (c) => {
  const { date, title } = c.req.param()
  ...
})

Chained route

app
  .get('/endpoint', (c) => {
    return c.text('GET /endpoint')
  })
  .post((c) => {
    return c.text('POST /endpoint')
  })
  .delete((c) => {
    return c.text('DELETE /endpoint')
  })

no strict

If strict is set false, /helloand/hello/ are treated the same.

const app = new Hono({ strict: false }) // Default is true

app.get('/hello', (c) => c.text('/hello or /hello/'))

async/await

app.get('/fetch-url', async (c) => {
  const response = await fetch('https://example.com/')
  return c.text(`Status is ${response.status}`)
})

Grouping

Group the routes with Hono instance and add them to the main app with route method.

const book = new Hono()

book.get('/', (c) => c.text('List Books')) // GET /book
book.get('/:id', (c) => {
  // GET /book/:id
  const id = c.req.param('id')
  return c.text('Get Book: ' + id)
})
book.post('/', (c) => c.text('Create Book')) // POST /book

const app = new Hono()
app.route('/book', book)

Middleware

Middleware works after/before Handler. We can get Request before dispatching or manipulate Response after dispatching.

Definition of Middleware

• Handler - should return Response object. Only one handler will be called.
• Middleware - should return nothing, will be proceeded to next middleware with await next()

The user can register middleware using c.use or using c.HTTP_METHOD as well as the handlers. For this feature, it's easy to specify the path and the method.

// match any method, all routes
app.use('*', logger())

// specify path
app.use('/posts/*', cors())

// specify method and path
app.post('/posts/*', basicAuth(), bodyParse())

If the handler returns Response, it will be used for the end-user, and stopping the processing.

app.post('/posts', (c) => c.text('Created!', 201))

In this case, four middleware are processed before dispatching like this:

logger() -> cors() -> basicAuth() -> bodyParse() -> *handler*

Built-in Middleware

Hono has built-in middleware.

import { Hono } from 'hono'
import { poweredBy } from 'hono/powered-by'
import { logger } from 'hono/logger'
import { basicAuth } from 'hono/basicAuth'

const app = new Hono()

app.use('*', poweredBy())
app.use('*', logger())

app.use(
  '/auth/*',
  basicAuth({
    username: 'hono',
    password: 'acoolproject',
  })
)

Available built-in middleware is listed on src/middleware.

Custom Middleware

You can write your own middleware.

// Custom logger
app.use('*', async (c, next) => {
  console.log(`[${c.req.method}] ${c.req.url}`)
  await next()
})

// Add a custom header
app.use('/message/*', async (c, next) => {
  await next()
  c.header('x-message', 'This is middleware!')
})

app.get('/message/hello', (c) => c.text('Hello Middleware!'))

Not Found

app.notFound for customizing Not Found Response.

app.notFound((c) => {
  return c.text('Custom 404 Message', 404)
})

Error Handling

app.onError handle the error and return the customized Response.

app.onError((err, c) => {
  console.error(`${err}`)
  return c.text('Custom Error Message', 500)
})

Context

To handle Request and Response, you can use Context object.

c.req

// Get Request object
app.get('/hello', (c) => {
  const userAgent = c.req.headers.get('User-Agent')
  ...
})

// Shortcut to get a header value
app.get('/shortcut', (c) => {
  const userAgent = c.req.header('User-Agent')
  ...
})

// Query params
app.get('/search', (c) => {
  const query = c.req.query('q')
  ...
})

// Get all params at once
app.get('/search', (c) => {
  const { q, limit, offset } = c.req.query()
  ...
})

// Multiple query values
app.get('/search', (c) => {
  const queries = c.req.queries('q')
  // ---> GET search?q=foo&q=bar
  // queries[0] => foo, queries[1] => bar
  ...
})

// Captured params
app.get('/entry/:id', (c) => {
  const id = c.req.param('id')
  ...
})

Shortcuts for Response

app.get('/welcome', (c) => {
  // Set headers
  c.header('X-Message', 'Hello!')
  c.header('Content-Type', 'text/plain')

  // Set HTTP status code
  c.status(201)

  // Return the response body
  return c.body('Thank you for comming')
})

The Response is the same as below.

new Response('Thank you for comming', {
  status: 201,
  headers: {
    'X-Message': 'Hello',
    'Content-Type': 'text/plain',
  },
})

c.text()

Render text as Content-Type:text/plain.

app.get('/say', (c) => {
  return c.text('Hello!')
})

c.json()

Render JSON as Content-Type:application/json.

app.get('/api', (c) => {
  return c.json({ message: 'Hello!' })
})

c.html()

Render HTML as Content-Type:text/html.

app.get('/', (c) => {
  return c.html('<h1>Hello! Hono!</h1>')
})

c.notFound()

Return the Not Found Response.

app.get('/notfound', (c) => {
  return c.notFound()
})

c.redirect()

Redirect, default status code is 302.

app.get('/redirect', (c) => c.redirect('/'))
app.get('/redirect-permanently', (c) => c.redirect('/', 301))

c.res

// Response object
app.use('/', async (c, next) => {
  await next()
  c.res.headers.append('X-Debug', 'Debug message')
})

c.executionCtx

// ExecutionContext object
app.get('/foo', async (c) => {
  c.executionCtx.waitUntil(
    c.env.KV.put(key, data)
  )
  ...
})

c.event

// FetchEvent object (only set when using Service Worker syntax)
app.get('/foo', async (c) => {
  c.event.waitUntil(
    c.env.KV.put(key, data)
  )
  ...
})

c.env

Environment variables, secrets, and KV namespaces are known as bindings. Regardless of type, bindings are always available as global variables and can be accessed via the context c.env.BINDING_KEY.

// Environment object for Cloudflare Workers
app.get('*', async c => {
  const counter = c.env.COUNTER
  ...
})

fire

app.fire() do this.

addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
  event.respondWith(this.handleEvent(event))
})

fetch

app.fetch for Cloudflare Module Worker syntax.

export default {
  fetch(request: Request, env: Env, ctx: ExecutionContext) {
    return app.fetch(request, env, ctx)
  },
}

or just do:

export default app

request

request is a useful method for testing.

test('GET /hello is ok', async () => {
  const res = await app.request('http://localhost/hello')
  expect(res.status).toBe(200)
})

router

The router option specify which router is used inside. The default router is TrieRouter. If you want to use RexExpRouter, write like this:

import { RegExpRouter } from 'hono/router/reg-exp-router'

const app = new Hono({ router: new RegExpRouter() })

Routing priority

Handlers or middleware will be executed in registration order.

app.get('/book/a', (c) => c.text('a')) // a
app.get('/book/:slug', (c) => c.text('common')) // common

GET /book/a ---> `a`
GET /book/b ---> `common`

When a handler is executed, the process will be stopped.

app.get('*', (c) => c.text('common')) // common
app.get('/foo', (c) => c.text('foo')) // foo

GET /foo ---> `common` // foo will not be dispatched

If you have the middleware that you want to execute, write the code above the handler.

app.use('*', logger())
app.get('/foo', (c) => c.text('foo'))

If you want a "fallback" handler, write the code below the other handler.

app.get('/foo', (c) => c.text('foo')) // foo
app.get('*', (c) => c.text('fallback')) // fallback

GET /bar ---> `fallback`

Cloudflare Workers with Hono

Using Wrangler, you can develop the application locally and publish it with few commands.

Let's write your first code for Cloudflare Workers with Hono.

1. wrangler init

Initialize as a wrangler project.

mkdir hono-example
cd hono-example
npx wrangler init -y

2. npm install hono

Install hono from the npm registry.

npm init -y
npm i hono

3. Write your app

Edit src/index.ts. Only 4 lines!!

// src/index.ts
import { Hono } from 'hono'
const app = new Hono()

app.get('/', (c) => c.text('Hello! Hono!'))

app.fire()

4. Run

Run the development server locally. Then, access http://127.0.0.1:8787/ in your Web browser.

npx wrangler dev

5. Publish

Deploy to Cloudflare. That's all!

npx wrangler publish ./src/index.ts

Starter template

You can start making your Cloudflare Workers application with the starter template. It is really minimal using TypeScript, esbuild, Miniflare, and Jest.

To generate a project skeleton, run this command.

npx create-cloudflare my-app https://github.com/honojs/hono-minimal

Practical Example

How about writing web API with Hono?

import { Hono } from 'hono'
import { cors } from 'hono/cors'
import { basicAuth } from 'hono/basic-auth'
import { prettyJSON } from 'hono/pretty-json'
import { getPosts, getPost, createPost, Post } from './model'

const app = new Hono()
app.get('/', (c) => c.text('Pretty Blog API'))
app.use('*', prettyJSON())
app.notFound((c) => c.json({ message: 'Not Found', ok: false }, 404))

export interface Bindings {
  USERNAME: string
  PASSWORD: string
}

const api = new Hono<Bindings>()
api.use('/posts/*', cors())

api.get('/posts', (c) => {
  const { limit, offset } = c.req.query()
  const posts = getPosts({ limit, offset })
  return c.json({ posts })
})

api.get('/posts/:id', (c) => {
  const id = c.req.param('id')
  const post = getPost({ id })
  return c.json({ post })
})

api.post(
  '/posts',
  async (c, next) => {
    const auth = basicAuth({ username: c.env.USERNAME, password: c.env.PASSWORD })
    await auth(c, next)
  },
  async (c) => {
    const post = await c.req.json<Post>()
    const ok = createPost({ post })
    return c.json({ ok })
  }
)

app.route('/api', api)

export default app

Other Examples

• Hono Examples - https://github.com/honojs/examples

Deno

Hono also works on Deno. This feature is still experimental.

/** @jsx jsx */
import { serve } from 'https://deno.land/std/http/server.ts'
import { Hono, logger, poweredBy, serveStatic, jsx } from 'https://deno.land/x/hono/mod.ts'

const app = new Hono()

app.use('*', logger(), poweredBy())

app.get('/favicon.ico', serveStatic({ path: './public/favicon.ico' }))
app.get('/', (c) => {
  return c.html(<h1>Hello Deno!</h1>)
})

serve(app.fetch)

Bun

Hono also works on Bun. This feature is still experimental.

import { Hono } from 'hono'

const app = new Hono()

app.get('/', (c) => {
  return c.json({ message: 'Hello Bun!' })
})

export default {
  port: 3000,
  fetch: app.fetch,
}

Related projects

Implementation of the original router TrieRouter is inspired by goblin. RegExpRouter is inspired by Router::Boom. API design is inspired by express and koa. itty-router, Sunder, and worktop are the other routers or frameworks for Cloudflare Workers.

• express - https://github.com/expressjs/express
• koa - https://github.com/koajs/koa
• itty-router - https://github.com/kwhitley/itty-router
• Sunder - https://github.com/SunderJS/sunder
• goblin - https://github.com/bmf-san/goblin
• worktop - https://github.com/lukeed/worktop
• Router::Boom - https://github.com/tokuhirom/Router-Boom

Contributing

Contributions Welcome! You can contribute in the following ways.

• Write or fix documents
• Write code of middleware
• Fix bugs
• Refactor the code
• etc.

Contributors

Thanks to all contributors! Especially, @metrue and @usualoma!

Author

Yusuke Wada https://github.com/yusukebe

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.