Getting Started

Introduction

tinyhttp is a modern Express-like web framework for Node.js written in TypeScript. It uses a bare minimum amount of dependencies in order to stay minimal and reduce the supply chain. Additionally, tinyhttp also offers native ESM (import / export) support, async middleware handlers support, and proper types out of the box.

Differences with Express

Although tinyhttp tries to be as close to Express as possible, there are some key differences between these two frameworks:

• tinyhttp doesn't have the same settings. All App settings are initialized in the constructor. You can see a list of them here.
• tinyhttp doesn't put the err object in middleware if the previous one passed an error. Instead, it uses a generic error handler.
• tinyhttp doesn't include a static server and a body parser. To keep the framework small, you should use external middlewares, such as milliparsec and sirv.

Note that maximum compatibility is in progress so some of the points might change.

Install

tinyhttp supports Node.js 14.21.3 or newer or Bun.

You can quickly setup a working app with tinyhttp CLI:

node

# Install tinyhttp CLI
pnpm i -g @tinyhttp/cli

# Create a new project
tinyhttp new basic my-app

# Go to project directory
cd my-app

# Run your app
node index.js

bun

# Install tinyhttp CLI
bun i -g @tinyhttp/cli

# Create a new project
tinyhttp new basic my-app

# Go to project directory
cd my-app

# Run your app
bun app.js

Hello World

Here is a very basic example of a tinyhttp app:

import { App } from '@tinyhttp/app'

const app = new App()

app.use((req, res) => void res.send('Hello world!'))

app.listen(3000, () => console.log('Started on http://localhost:3000'))

For more examples check examples folder in tinyhttp repo.