VelociradixC++17 HTTP engine for Node.js

Native kqueue/epoll workers and a small Express-like API. Custom HTTP parser — not llhttp. JS routes are not faster than Fastify; fastGet is a different workload.

Get started

Trust & parser

Honest benchmarks

API

⚙️

Native engine

kqueue/epoll, SO_REUSEPORT workers, radix-trie router. Prebuilds for Linux x64, macOS arm64, Windows x64. Zero npm runtime dependencies.

🛤️

Two request paths

app.get runs JavaScript (Fastify is faster here). fastGet writes a preformatted body from C++ — use it for /health and /ping, not as a Fastify comparison.

🛡️

Custom parser, stated up front

Not llhttp. Smuggling and DoS guards exist; operational maturity is not the same as Node’s parser. Use the latest release on the public internet.

📦

8.x stability line

No more major versions for features. Install the latest 8.x from npm. Breaking changes wait for a real 9.0 with a migration window.

🔌

Express-compatible API

velociradix/express — app.use, Router, json(), morgan-friendly res. Velociradix C++ owns the socket. Not the npm express package.

🐛

Talk to the repo

Open a GitHub issue when something breaks. Downloads without issues usually means people left quietly.

Same-work benchmark — JS handlers

autocannon -c 100 --pipeline 10, GET /json, small JSON body, no logger middleware. Apple Silicon. This is the comparison that matters for application code.

Fastify v4.28~68k req/s

68k

Velociradix app.get~54k req/s

54k

Express v4.19~12k req/s

12k

~80% of Fastify on lean JS JSON — beside it, not above. fastGet is a different test (~114k for a preformatted C++ body). Details in the benchmarks guide.

Minimal server

javascript

import { createApp, helmet } from "velociradix";

const app = createApp();
app.use(helmet());
app.fastGet("/health", { ok: true });
app.get("/", (ctx) => ({ message: "hello" }));
app.listen(3000);

Custom parser and native addon

You are not installing a pure-JS package. A .node binary parses HTTP. Read Trust before binding this to 0.0.0.0 on the internet. Use 8.2.0 or newer.