esbuild does not type check. TypeScript type checks and then emits code. Better performance can be achieved by just stripping types and emitting code.
It would be great to improve the performance of type checking, but that’s more complicated.
Some project are trying, the Deno maintainers have asserted that TypeScript should be rewritten in Rust for better performance. swc is trying to do that - https://github.com/swc-project/swc/issues/571
In Rome: A Linter for JavaScript and TypeScriptswc-project
swc
Rust2018–2025
swc-project / swc
swc
Rust-based platform for the Web
50Distinct people
50Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
34.2KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Rust-based platform for the Web
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
Slightly tangential, but I can't tell if I love or hate the logo for swc https://github.com/swc-project/swc Either way, I want to try this next time I'm using TypeScript.
dj_gitmo used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- evanw/esbuild · linked in 3 of the same discussions
- denoland/deno · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 9:01:12 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year50 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-11-10 20:18:20 UTC to 2025-09-16 12:14:36 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 18 | 2 | 16 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 1 | 8 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Make the web (development) faster.
SWC (stands for Speedy Web Compiler) is a super-fast TypeScript / JavaScript compiler written in Rust. It's a library for Rust and JavaScript at the same time. If you are using SWC from Rust, see rustdoc and for most users, your entry point for using the library will be parser.
Also, SWC tries to ensure that
If you select the latest version of each crates, it will work
for rust users.
MSRV of crates is currently 1.73.
To update all SWC crates you use, you can run curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swc-project/swc/main/scripts/update-all-swc-crates.sh | bash -s. This script will update all dependencies to the latest version and run cargo build to ensure that everything works.
Note that you need
jq
cargo upgrade
command to run the script.
Supported Node Versions:
Node v10+ for usage
Node v20+ for development
If you are using SWC from JavaScript, please refer to docs on the website.
Documentation
Check out the documentation in the website.
Native npm packages use self-loading compressed addons on x64 and arm64 macOS,
Windows MSVC, and Linux GNU/musl. The first load materializes the verified
original addon; package names and JavaScript APIs stay the same. See
native addon carriers
for the supported-target boundary and SWC_NATIVE_BINDING_CACHE.
Features
Please see comparison with babel.
Performance
Please see benchmark results on the website.
Supporting development
Supporting swc
Star History
Powered by
Sponsors
SWC is a community-driven project, and is maintained by a group of volunteers. If you'd like to help support the future of the project, please consider:
Giving developer time on the project. (Message us on Discord (preferred) or Github discussions for guidance!)
Giving funds by becoming a sponsor (see https://opencollective.com/swc)!
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md. You may also find the architecture
documentation useful (ARCHITECTURE.md).
License
SWC is primarily distributed under the terms of the Apache License (Version 2.0).
See LICENSE for details.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
10 sourcesDon't forget https://github.com/swc-project/swc
In Rome: A Linter for JavaScript and TypeScriptThey should just use deno to run their setup, there would be no compilation if they did that. ;)
Someone is trying to rewrite tsc in rust for speed up here - https://github.com/swc-project/swc
Cool project for runtime checking with ts - https://github.com/gcanti/io-ts
Edit: Remove unmaintained runtime type checking library.
In Deno will stop using TypeScriptThey are considering switching from tsc to a TypeScript compiler written in Rust[0][1], and `deno fmt` subcommand already uses it internally.
[0] https://github.com/denoland/deno/issues/5432
[1] https://github.com/swc-project/swc
In Design Doc: Use JavaScript instead of TypeScript for internal Deno CodeSomeone is working on it: https://github.com/swc-project/swc/issues/571
In Deno 1.0I wonder how possible it would be to just use this:
https://github.com/swc-project/swc
It's still not feature-complete, but there aren't any alternatives written in Rust that I know of.
In Deno 1.0Rome seems fine but I find this approach to be a bit more interesting https://github.com/swc-project/swc — though Rome seems potentially broader in scope.
In Rome: An experimental JavaScript toolchainI believe something like this project is inevitable. You're probably thinking "Where's the Rust version of this?". I'll save you a roundtrip to Google that'll find you SWC. [1]
SWC is already more mature, at least more so than this project. Using rust does also seem to have some advantages compared to Go.
Still, nothing wrong with some competition, just think it'll be pretty hard to replace the entire ecosystem around Typescript/Babel/Webpack in one go. Not going to work for existing project - probably way too high of a risk for new ones, sadly.
[1] https://github.com/swc-project/swc
In ESbuild – A fast JavaScript bundler and minifier in GoCheck out this project that is an attempt to rewrite Babel in Rust. It includes a Webpack plugin and their benchmarks show a major speedup.
https://github.com/swc-project/swc
In ESbuild – A fast JavaScript bundler and minifier in Goalso https://packem.github.io/
and another build tool that's perf optimized: https://github.com/swc-project/swc
In Parcel – Fast, zero-configuration web application bundler