Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Ion, a Rust/Tokio powered JavaScript runtime for embedders

A Positively Charged JavaScript Runtime . Contribute to alshdavid-public/ion development by creating an account on GitHub.

Ion is a JavaScript runtime built with Rust and Tokio, designed for developers who need to embed JavaScript execution in their applications. It provides an alternative to existing runtimes by leveraging Rust's… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1TA
Tonic – A data visualizing REPL for Node.js▲342
2015 · tonicdev.com · its alternatives →
2
Restate – Low-latency durable workflows for JavaScript/Java, in Rust▲185
We'd love to share our work with you: Restate, a system for workflows-as-code (durable execution). With SDKs in JS/Java/Kotlin and a lightweight runtime built in Rust/Tokio. https://github.com/restatedev/ https://restate.dev/ It is free and open, SDKs are MIT-licensed, runtime permissive BSL (basically just the minimal Amazon defense). We worked on that for a bit over a year. A few points I think are worth mentioning: - Restate's runtime is a single binary, self-contained, no dependencies aside from a durable disk. It contains basically a…
2024 · restate.dev · its alternatives →
3
Coerce – Actor runtime for Rust using async/await and tokio channels▲155
Actor runtime and distributed systems framework for Rust - LeonHartley/Coerce-rs
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
4
ion design▲177
Instantly turn Figma into React code
2024 · ion.design · its alternatives →
5
ION, a JSON alternative – Versatile, compact, fast, binary data format▲29
A Java toolkit for working with the IAP network protocol and its data format ION. - jjenkov/iap-tools-java
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
6VT
Val Town – A Cloud Scripting Site▲332
Hey HN! We're so excited to show you Val Town (https://val.town)! A "val" is a JavaScript/TypeScript function or value that runs on our servers. We aim to get you from idea to running code in seconds: type code, run it, get its API endpoint, schedule it - all from the browser, in a couple keystrokes. We're a startup of 4 people, mostly in NYC. We've been working on this for 6 months and are eager for feedback from the HN community. Why do we need yet another online coding IDE? While researching devtools[1], I found myself wanting something halfway between Replit and Zapier: a…
2023 · val.town · its alternatives →
7
Bun▲303
A fast JS runtime Node.js replacement with built‑in tools
Dec 2025 · bun.com · its alternatives →
8
A Fast, Malloc-Free C++14 Json Parser and Encoder▲98
Meta programming utilities for C++14. Merged in matt-42/lithium - matt-42/iod
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
9
I finished v5 of a JVM framework I've spent spent half a decade making▲377
ForewordJavalin is a Java and Kotlin web framework which focuses on simplicity and Java/Kotlin interoperability.It supports WebSockets and HTTP3, and it uses...
2022 · javalin.io · its alternatives →
10
Second State VM▲78
High performance secure & portable Rust functions in Node.js
2020 · secondstate.io · its alternatives →
11
Artifact Keeper – Open-Source Artifactory/Nexus Alternative in Rust▲166
I'm a software engineer who keeps getting pulled into DevOps no matter how hard I try to escape it. I recently moved into a Lead DevOps Engineer role writing tooling to automate a lot of the pain away. On my own time outside of work, I built Artifact Keeper — a self-hosted artifact registry that supports 45+ package formats. Security scanning, SSO, replication, WASM plugins — it's all in the MIT-licensed release. No enterprise tier. No feature gates. No surprise invoices. Your package managers — pip, npm, docker, cargo, helm, go, all of them — talk directly to it using their native…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
12
A minimal working Rust / SDL2 / WASM browser game▲82
"Game" is a stretch, but I put together this repo containing a pure Rust app which uses SDL2 and compiles to WASM (and can be run in a browser). Older resources were a bit out of date and a bit too verbose for my purposes, so here's a minimal working example.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
13
SwimOS Rust – A framework for real-time streaming data applications▲71
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
14
Rusteerio by Context.dev▲71
Keep your Cheerio code. Make it faster.
3d ago · github.com · its alternatives →
15AC
Asdf Clone Written in Rust▲79
I think that asdf (https://asdf-vm.com) was a great idea for a project. It helps consolidate installing and running different programming languages into a similar UX. It also is built with a plugin interface that makes it easy to build support for new languages. However it is so slow. I was just testing `node -v` and it was taking ~900ms. That kind of overhead is completely unusable. My shell prompt uses runtimes inside of it for various things so this effectively makes every command take multiple seconds to complete. So I rebuilt it in Rust but using the same plugin ecosystem so…
2023 · its alternatives →
16
Run – a CLI universal code runner I built while learning Rust▲96
Hi HN — I’m learning Rust and decided to build a universal CLI for running code in many languages. The tool, Run, aims to be a single, minimal dependency utility for: running one-off snippets (from CLI flags), running files, reading and executing piped stdin, and providing language-specific REPLs that you can switch between interactively. I designed it to support both interpreted languages (Python, JS, Ruby, etc.) and compiled languages (Rust, Go, C/C++). It detects languages from flags or file extensions, can compile temporary files for compiled languages, and exposes a unified REPL…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
17TJ
Titan – JavaScript-first framework that compiles into a Rust server▲49
Hi HN, I built Titan, a backend framework where you write routes and logic in JavaScript, and the CLI compiles everything into a single Rust + Axum binary using the Boa JS engine. No Node.js is required in production. The idea is to keep JS developer experience while getting Rust performance and a self-contained deployable server. Current features: JS route DSL Action system mapped to Rust esbuild bundling Generated Rust server with Axum Hot-reload dev server Single-binary output Repo: https://github.com/ezet-galaxy/-ezetgalaxy-titan Would love feedback on the…
Dec 2025 · npmjs.com · its alternatives →
18AF
Apache Fory Rust – 10-20x faster serialization than JSON/Protobuf▲67
Serialization framework with some interesting numbers: 10-20x faster on nested objects than json/protobuf. Technical approach: compile-time codegen (no reflection), compact binary protocol with meta-packing, little-endian layout optimized for modern CPUs. Unique features that other fast serializers don't have: - Cross-language without IDL files (Rust ↔ Python/Java/Go) - Trait object serialization (Box) - Automatic circular reference handling - Schema evolution without coordination Happy to discuss design trade-offs. Benchmarks:…
Oct 2025 · fory.apache.org · its alternatives →
19
Crust – A CLI framework for TypeScript and Bun▲95
We've been building Crust (https://crustjs.com/), a TypeScript-first, Bun-native CLI framework with zero dependencies. It's been powering our core product internally for a while, and we're now open-sourcing it. The problem we kept running into: existing CLI frameworks in the JS ecosystem are either minimal arg parsers where you wire everything yourself, or heavyweight frameworks with large dependency trees and Node-era assumptions. We wanted something in between. What Crust does differently: - Full type inference from definitions — args and flags are inferred automatically. No…
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
SyncKit – Offline-first sync engine (Rust/WASM and TypeScript)▲87
Local-first collaboration SDK for React, Vue, and Svelte. Batteries-included: Rich text, undo/redo, cursors, and presence. - Dancode-188/synckit
Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
21
Minikv – Distributed key-value and object store in Rust (Raft, S3 API)▲71
Hi HN, I'm Emilie, I have a literature background (which explains the well-written documentation!) and I've been learning Rust and distributed systems by building minikv over the past few months. It recently got featured in Programmez! magazine: https://www.programmez.com/actualites/minikv-un-key-value-st... minikv is an open-source, distributed storage engine built for learning, experimentation, and self-hosted setups. It combines a strongly-consistent key-value database (Raft), S3-compatible object storage, and basic multi-tenancy. Features/highlights: - Raft…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
22
Salt – a systems language with Z3 theorem proving in the compiler▲44
Hey HN, I wanted to share the new online playground for Salt (https://salt-lang.dev/playground/), a sovereign systems language designed for high-performance, distributed workloads where paying an "abstraction tax" is no longer acceptable. We started building Salt to bridge the gap between the raw power of manual pointer arithmetic and the safety guarantees of modern high-level languages. The architecture relies on an MLIR-based backbone and a Z3-powered "formal shadow," and the design is rooted in three main pillars: Fast Enough: The target is to stay within 20% of C's…
Jul 2026 · salt-lang.dev · its alternatives →
23
Mosaic – A Kotlin framework for cleaner back end code▲25
Backend APIs often grow into large orchestration classes full of duplicated calls and manual concurrency. I’ve been working on Mosaic, a Kotlin framework that composes responses out of small, request-scoped “tiles.” Each tile runs once per request, dependencies resolve automatically, and independent tiles execute in parallel without boilerplate. It’s still early (v0.2.0), but working today for caching, concurrency, and testability. Curious to hear feedback on the approach. GitHub: https://github.com/Nick-Abbott/Mosaic Maven Central: org.buildmosaic:mosaic-core:0.2.0
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
24
A simple Pastebin Clone using Deno▲58
This is a simple Pastebin clone I made using the Deno Typescript runtime. I created a simple templating system, and implemented server-side rendering for the UI. Demo: https://paste.jlcarveth.dev/
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →