If you've built backend APIs in Node.js, there's a good chance you've used Express .

For years, Express has been the default choice for building web servers in Node.js . But recently, another framework has been getting a lot of attention: Fastify .

Developers often say things like:

"Fastify is way faster than Express."

But what does that actually mean?

And more importantly — should you switch to Fastify?

In this article, we'll break it down in simple terms.

We'll compare:

Performance characteristics

Developer experience

Architecture and design philosophy

Real-world benchmarks

When you should choose each framework

Let's start with a quick introduction.

What is Express?

Express.js is a minimal and flexible web application framework for Node.js .

Released in 2010, it quickly became the most popular backend framework in the JavaScript ecosystem.

It focuses on simplicity and flexibility.

A basic Express server looks like this:

const express = require ( ' express ' ); const app = express…