Next.js with Bun

Use Bun as the package manager and script runner for a Next.js project for faster installs and development workflows.

Next.js is a React framework for building full-stack web applications with server-side rendering, static site generation, API routes, and more. Bun speeds up package installation and script execution for Next.js projects.

Next.js still uses Node.js as its runtime for SSR and API routes. Bun acts as the package manager and script runner. Use bun --bun to run Next.js CLI commands inside Bun’s runtime.

1. Create a Next.js app

   Scaffold a new Next.js project using Bun:

   bun create next-app@latest my-bun-app
   

   The interactive CLI will ask about TypeScript, ESLint, Tailwind CSS, and the App Router. Bun installs dependencies automatically after scaffolding.

2. Start the dev server

   Change into the project directory and start the Next.js dev server with Bun’s runtime:

   cd my-bun-app
   bun --bun run dev
   

   Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Changes to app/page.tsx are hot-reloaded automatically.

3. Update package.json scripts

   Prefix the Next.js CLI commands with bun --bun so that all scripts run inside Bun’s runtime:

   package.json

   {
     "scripts": {
       "dev": "bun --bun next dev",
       "build": "bun --bun next build",
       "start": "bun --bun next start",
       "lint": "next lint"
     }
   }
   

   With this in place, bun run dev, bun run build, and bun run start all use Bun’s runtime.

Common commands

Task	Command
Install dependencies	bun install
Start dev server	bun run dev
Build for production	bun run build
Start production server	bun run start
Run linter	bun run lint
Add a package	bun add <package>
Remove a package	bun remove <package>

Performance benefits

Using Bun as the package manager for Next.js projects provides:

• Faster installs: bun install is significantly faster than npm install or yarn install due to parallelism and a global package cache.
• Faster script startup: Running Next.js CLI commands through Bun reduces the overhead of spawning child processes.
• Lockfile compatibility: bun.lock is committed to version control like package-lock.json or yarn.lock.

Deployment

Next.js on Bun deploys to all major platforms:

Vercel

Deploy on Vercel

Railway

Deploy on Railway

AWS Lambda

Deploy on AWS Lambda

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See the Next.js documentation for a complete reference on building and deploying Next.js applications.