Perry TypeScript compiler
Ranked 3 of 6 TypeScript compilers by recommenders
Compiles TypeScript to native apps with no V8 or Electron runtime, and people see it as a promising Bun competitor. Critics say the website and docs look AI-generated and out of date.
Compiles TypeScript to native apps with no V8 or Electron runtime, and people see it as a promising Bun competitor. Critics say the website and docs look AI-generated and out of date.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 42%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Compiles TypeScript to native executables
“A very interesting project because I always thought TypeScript or at least some subset of it should be natively compiled.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “No V8, no runtime, no Electron.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Pry – TypeScript compiled to native code, no Electron or V8” Small runtime, no V8 or Electron
“The Perry runtime is surprisiginly small, especially since we (LLVM rather) strip out all that is no needed in one of the compile steps.”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “No V8, no runtime, no Electron.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Pry – TypeScript compiled to native code, no Electron or V8” Seen as promising Bun competitor
“I'm quite confident that this will work out well”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “looks like a very promising competitor to Bun”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “I am worried about Bun”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Website and docs look AI-generated
“Website immediately turns me off as it looks typically AI generated and has the AI pulsing "attention" dot.”
Comment from 27 Jun 2026 in “Perry – compiles TypeScript to native GUI and CLI apps. No runtime / Electron” “the AI slop presentation would definitely need improvement”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “the website, documentation, and even the comments the creator makes in response to questions are all very clearly AI-generated”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” - Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM”
- Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM”
- Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM”
- Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM”
Documentation outdated or hard to follow
“The website doesn't explain how it works in a lot of detail.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “The docs I must admit are not quite up to date.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “I'm confused by the (frankly bad) documentation”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” - Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM”
Benchmarks slower than Node and Zig
“it's 11x slower than Node.js and 23x slower than Gea Stack with Hono”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Native apps written in TypeScript and CSS” “1.86x behind Zig on image convolution, with 1.24 billion wasted instructions traced specifically to NaN-box unboxing”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” No runtime claim seen as dubious
“advertising "no runtime" and then requiring JS runtime (and a full local Rust setup to compile it)”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM” “the claim of "no runtime" is a bit dubious”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Perry Compiles TypeScript directly to executables using SWC and LLVM”
Other TypeScript compilers people recommend
The four most recommended other TypeScript compilers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tsgo | 16 | 3 | 84% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Scriptc by Vercel | 12 | 21 | 36% | 2 | — | — |
| Perry TypeScript compilerThis page | 11 | 15 | 42% | 4 | — | — |
| tsz | 6 | 3 | 67% | 2 | — | — |
| tsc-ts | 6 | 1 | 86% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
28 of the 32 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's 11x slower than Node.js and 23x slower than Gea Stack with Hono”
“Website immediately turns me off as it looks typically AI generated and has the AI pulsing "attention" dot.”
“the initial page load just screeched "AI design"”
“The Perry runtime is surprisiginly small, especially since we (LLVM rather) strip out all that is no needed in one of the compile steps.”
“I'm quite confident that this will work out well”
“the last few days we made great progress to get Perry to compile packages”
“The docs I must admit are not quite up to date.”
“This still makes no sense to me!”
“after realizing its ai slop, I lost interest”
“Seems at least the landing page is heavily vibe coded and copy sounds LLM-generated too.”
“Turns out jsruntime was removed one week ago, but the error messages probably not have been updated as they should.”
“vibe-coded garbage where nobody takes responsibility for the resulting code”
“wondered if that isn't a recipe for disaster”
“I'm confused by the (frankly bad) documentation”
“the docs don't mention that at all”
“it said it needs JS runtime”
“It's pretty standard for "no runtime" to mean nothing on the device you install the compiled target app.”
“the AI slop presentation would definitely need improvement”
“A very interesting project because I always thought TypeScript or at least some subset of it should be natively compiled.”
“advertising "no runtime" and then requiring JS runtime (and a full local Rust setup to compile it)”
“The website doesn't explain how it works in a lot of detail.”
“the website, documentation, and even the comments the creator makes in response to questions are all very clearly AI-generated”
“You're presenting the data from there in an extremely misleading way!”
“1.86x behind Zig on image convolution, with 1.24 billion wasted instructions traced specifically to NaN-box unboxing”
“Though I do worry they're trying to do too much here.”
“the claim of "no runtime" is a bit dubious”
“looks like a very promising competitor to Bun”
“No V8, no runtime, no Electron.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.