Express vs Fastify: Complete Comparison Guide
Compare Express and Fastify on speed, TypeScript support, plugin ecosystem, and scalability. Discover which Node.js framework is the best fit for your project.
Express
The most widely used Node.js web framework with a massive middleware ecosystem. Express provides a minimal, flexible foundation for building web applications and APIs. The framework has been around for over a decade and is supported by a community of millions of developers worldwide.
Fastify
A modern, high-performance Node.js framework designed for speed and low overhead. Fastify handles up to twice as many requests per second as Express and offers built-in support for JSON Schema validation, TypeScript, and an extensible plugin system.
Comparison table
| Feature | Express | Fastify |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Baseline speed — suitable for most applications | Up to 2x faster than Express in benchmarks thanks to optimized serialization |
| TypeScript support | Via community @types package — no native support | Native TypeScript support with generics for routes and schemas |
| Schema validation | Via external middleware such as Joi or Zod | Built-in via JSON Schema — automatically accelerates serialization |
| Plugin ecosystem | 50,000+ middleware packages on NPM | Growing ecosystem with 300+ official and community plugins |
| Logging | No built-in logger — morgan or winston as add-ons | Pino logger integrated — structured logging out of the box |
| Learning curve | Very low — minimal, well-known API | Low — similar API structure to Express |
Verdict
Express remains the most popular Node.js framework, ideal for teams wanting to start quickly with a vast middleware ecosystem. Fastify is the better choice when performance matters — it handles up to twice as many requests per second. Fastify also provides built-in schema validation and excellent TypeScript support. For new projects without legacy dependencies, Fastify is technically superior. However, Express remains the safe choice for teams familiar with its ecosystem where raw speed is not a deciding factor.
Our recommendation
At MG Software, we choose Fastify as our default Node.js framework for new API projects. The combination of high performance, built-in validation, and TypeScript support aligns perfectly with our development standards. For clients with existing Express applications, we migrate incrementally — the API structure is comparable, making the transition manageable. Our Next.js projects benefit from Fastify when custom API routes are needed. We only recommend Express when a specific middleware is indispensable and no Fastify alternative is available.
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