Cilantrobyte.

Tech Stacks · Backend

Hono

The Express replacement we wish we'd had five years ago.

Category

Backend

At the studio

Since 2023

Projects shipped

Numerous

Status

Active

(01) Our take

Hono is what we reach for when we need a new HTTP service in JavaScript-land. It's tiny, it's fast, and its TypeScript-first design means route handlers know their own parameter types without codegen.

We particularly like how well it pairs with edge runtimes. For services that need to be close to users — auth, rate limiting, geolocated routing — we deploy Hono on Cloudflare Workers and get sub-100ms response times globally.

(02) What we build with it

Typical work

  • Lightweight REST APIs
  • Edge-deployed services on Cloudflare Workers
  • BFF layers between frontend and multiple backends
  • Serverless function handlers

(03) How we engage

Engagement shape

Often used inside Next.js apps via Route Handlers, or as a standalone service when we need to deploy outside of a Next.js footprint.

(04) Pairs with

Works well with

Technologies we reach for alongside Hono in most engagements.

Backend

Node.js

The default backend runtime for JavaScript shops.

Frontend

TypeScript

Strict mode, no exceptions.

Infra

Cloudflare

Edge compute, CDN, and everything in between.

Infra

Vercel

Where we host most Next.js applications we ship.

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