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Fastify vs hapi: What are the differences?

Introduction

Fastify and hapi are both popular Node.js frameworks for building web applications. While they have some similarities, they also have key differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore six key differences between Fastify and hapi.

  1. Performance: Fastify is known for its impressive performance, as it is designed to be one of the fastest web frameworks available. It achieves this through various optimization techniques such as a highly efficient routing system and a powerful plugin architecture. On the other hand, hapi focuses more on the ease of use and developer experience, sacrificing some performance in favor of a more intuitive and expressive API.

  2. Plugin Ecosystem: Both Fastify and hapi have an extensive plugin ecosystem that allows developers to easily extend their applications. However, the approaches differ. Fastify focuses on providing a minimal core while leveraging the wider Node.js ecosystem for additional functionality. It encourages the use of existing modules and follows the "do one thing and do it well" principle. In contrast, hapi provides a more comprehensive set of features out of the box, with many functionalities built directly into the framework itself.

  3. Routing: Fastify and hapi have different approaches when it comes to routing. Fastify uses a schema-based routing system, where routes are defined using JSON schemas. This allows for easy validation and serialization of request and response payloads. On the other hand, hapi uses a more traditional callback-based routing system, where routes are defined using JavaScript code. While this offers more flexibility, it may require more boilerplate code.

  4. Extensibility: Fastify is designed to be highly extensible, allowing developers to easily add custom functionality through plugins. It provides a powerful plugin architecture that allows for granular control over the request lifecycle. Hapi also supports extensibility through plugins, but it provides a more opinionated approach with a set of predefined extension points and lifecycle events.

  5. Community and Documentation: Fastify has gained popularity in recent years, and it has a growing community of developers who contribute to its ecosystem. The documentation for Fastify is comprehensive and well-maintained, making it easy for developers to get started and find answers to their questions. Hapi, on the other hand, has been around for longer and has a larger community and ecosystem. It has extensive documentation and a wide range of plugins and resources available.

  6. Usage Scenarios: Fastify is an excellent choice for building high-performance web applications that require minimal overhead and maximum efficiency. It is particularly well-suited for microservice architectures and APIs. On the other hand, hapi is a more versatile framework that can be used for a wide range of applications, from small websites to large-scale enterprise applications. It provides a rich set of features out of the box and is suitable for teams with varying levels of experience.

In summary, Fastify and hapi have their own strengths and use cases. Fastify excels in performance and extensibility, making it ideal for high-performance applications. Hapi, on the other hand, focuses on ease of use, a comprehensive feature set, and a larger community. The choice between the two depends on the specific needs and requirements of your project.

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Pros of Fastify
Pros of hapi
  • 21
    Performance
  • 13
    Easy to use
  • 12
    Lightweight
  • 9
    Open source
  • 9
    Middleware
  • 6
    Highly customizable
  • 4
    Developer friendly
  • 4
    Decorators
  • 4
    Low overhead
  • 4
    Built-in Typescript support
  • 3
    Mature
  • 3
    Schema based
  • 3
    Plugins
  • 27
    Makes me Hapi making REST APIs
  • 14
    Simpler than other REST libraries
  • 14
    Configuration
  • 13
    Quality Driven Ecosystem
  • 13
    Modularization
  • 5
    Easy testability
  • 1
    Better validation
  • 0
    Restify

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Cons of Fastify
Cons of hapi
  • 1
    Small community
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    What is Fastify?

    Fastify is a web framework highly focused on speed and low overhead. It is inspired from Hapi and Express and as far as we know, it is one of the fastest web frameworks in town. Use Fastify can increase your throughput up to 100%.

    What is hapi?

    hapi is a simple to use configuration-centric framework with built-in support for input validation, caching, authentication, and other essential facilities for building web applications and services.

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    What are some alternatives to Fastify and hapi?
    Koa
    Koa aims to be a smaller, more expressive, and more robust foundation for web applications and APIs. Through leveraging generators Koa allows you to ditch callbacks and greatly increase error-handling. Koa does not bundle any middleware.
    Restify
    A Node.js web service framework optimized for building semantically correct RESTful web services ready for production use at scale. it optimizes for introspection and performance.
    Golang
    Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.
    ExpressJS
    Express is a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework, providing a robust set of features for building single and multi-page, and hybrid web applications.
    NestJS
    Nest is a framework for building efficient, scalable Node.js server-side applications. It uses progressive JavaScript, is built with TypeScript (preserves compatibility with pure JavaScript) and combines elements of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), FP (Functional Programming), and FRP (Functional Reactive Programming). Under the hood, Nest makes use of Express, but also, provides compatibility with a wide range of other libraries, like e.g. Fastify, allowing for easy use of the myriad third-party plugins which are available.
    See all alternatives