Cloudflare buys Deno, the JavaScript runtime from Node.js creator Ryan Dahl

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Cloudflare is acquiring Deno, the company behind the JavaScript and TypeScript runtime of the same name, TechCrunch reports. Deno was co-founded by Bert Belder and Ryan Dahl, who also created Node.js. Cloudflare wants the deal to strengthen Workers, its platform for running code across its global network. The price was not disclosed

Kenton Varda, principal engineer for Workers, said the team was delighted by celld, Deno's recently launched open source version of Workers. That suggests the two companies were already thinking along similar lines. Varda also rejected the idea that Cloudflare made Workers different from other platforms to lock customers in. He said being open source and giving people an escape hatch is good business

Ryan Dahl said his team is joining Cloudflare to make the Workers programming model a mainstream way to build servers. That is an ambitious goal. Node.js changed how developers build web servers, and Dahl clearly wants to shape the next generation too. Deno had raised $26 million in total, including a Series A led by Sequoia

Deno was created partly to fix design decisions Dahl regretted in Node.js. It has stronger security defaults, built in TypeScript support and a more modern standard library. It never overtook Node in popularity, but it influenced the whole ecosystem. Many of its ideas have been adopted elsewhere

Developers will want to know what happens to Deno as a standalone project. Cloudflare's emphasis on open source and escape hatches is a good sign. Edge computing, where code runs close to users around the world, keeps growing in importance. Bringing Deno's expertise into Cloudflare could make that easier for everyone

Have you used Deno or Cloudflare Workers? And do you think Deno will stay healthy as an open source project under Cloudflare?

Cloudflare acquires Deno to improve its Workers programming model | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com