Ant Debuts JavaScript Runtime With Custom Engine
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- Ant debuted as a JavaScript runtime with a custom engine called Ant Silver, an ~8.6 MB binary, 100% compat-table coverage, and WinterTC conformance.
- Ant recorded a 5.4ms mean cold start for importing Hono and registering two routes over 100 runs, versus 12.8ms for Bun, 24.8ms for Deno, and 31.1ms for Node in the project's own benchmark.
- Ant claims package installation up to 40x faster than npm with no extra tooling, and runs TypeScript directly without a tsconfig, bundler, or dist folder.
- Ant ships a VM-isolated sandbox built on KVM and Hypervisor.framework, with read-only mounts by default and deny-all networking unless specific ports are forwarded.
- Ant launched a package registry at ants.land that speaks the npm protocol and is compatible with ant, npm, yarn, pnpm, and bun package managers.
- Ant installs via a one-line curl script on macOS and Linux for arm64 and x86_64, with no toolchain required, and is published by a developer writing under the handle theMackabu.
Why it matters: Ant adds a fourth runtime with a truly custom engine to a market long dominated by Node, Deno, and Bun, and the KVM/Hypervisor sandbox gives it a hardware-isolation security posture none of the three incumbents currently match; the headline 5.4ms cold-start and 40x install figures, however, come from the project's own benchmark page, not independent testing.
