How the JS Framework 'Hono', which has grown rapidly in the last 3 years, was born [The Documentary: Hono]

Hono's development began in December 2021 as a hobby project by Wada for Cloudflare Workers. It originally had a design philosophy influenced by Perl and Go, rather than Node.js.

In February 2022, Uma joined, and the design was discussed with initial contributors, focusing on APIs and specifications. Applying Perl's regular expression router to TypeScript, it achieved the fastest benchmark at the time.

In July 2022, supporting both Bun and Deno became a turning point. When Bun was released and Express.js.js.js wasn't working, Hono was recommended as an alternative, rapidly increasing its recognition.

Hono's characteristics are 'lightweight, fast, and simple.' It's fast because its core is small and avoids unnecessary processing, similar to Koa. It uses Web standard APIs and runs on multiple runtimes (e.g., Cloudflare Workers/Bun/Deno).

In 2023, Wada joined Cloudflare Japan as a DevRel Manager. His hiring process began with a Twitter DM, and he participated in a video conference without realizing it was an interview.

Emphasizing community-driven growth, Hono Conf (conference) has been held since 2023. It functions as a venue connecting contributors and users.

Diverse contributors from around the world, including high school students, participate. It fosters a review culture that values input from developers of all ages, races, and skill levels worldwide.

It experienced competition and even jealousy from other frameworks but eventually became 'recognized.' It grew while aiming for coexistence with existing frameworks like Express.js.js.js and Fastify.

At the second Hono Conf in 2024, a contributor recognition program (awards) was introduced, initiating a system to give back through GitHub Sponsors.

Looking ahead, Hono aims to become the de facto standard as the first choice for new development, while maintaining its position as 'fun to write with' and 'Hono is the choice now'.