Express vs Fastify: The Numbers Behind the Hype

Fastify handles 80,000 requests per second. Express handles 25,000. That's a consistent 3x performance gap across every major benchmark. But Express still has 76 million weekly downloads — 14x more than Fastify. If raw speed were all that mattered, those numbers would be reversed. I ran both through PkgPulse to get the full picture beyond the benchmarks. Originally published on pkgpulse.com At a Glance Metric Express Fastify Weekly Downloads 76.6M 5.4M Requests/sec 20,000-30,000 70,000-80,000 First Release 2010 2016 Current Version 5.x 5.x TypeScript @types/express Built-in Validation Manual (middleware) Built-in (JSON Schema) Logging Manual (middleware) Built-in (Pino) Async/Await Supported (4.x+) Default pattern See the full live comparison at pkgpulse.com/compare/express-vs-fastify The headline stat: Fastify is 3-5x faster, but Express has 14x more downloads. Performance and adoption are telling different stories — and both are worth understanding. Performance: The Numbers Fastify's