What is hono? The edge-native web framework explained (2026)

Hono is a lightweight (~12kB), edge-native web framework built on Web Standards that runs identically across Cloudflare Workers, Bun, Deno, AWS Lambda, and Node.js. It uses native Request/Response objects, offers first-class TypeScript support, and includes production-ready middleware for auth, security, and caching. Its RegExpRouter compiles all routes into a single regex for fast matching, while SmartRouter auto-selects the optimal strategy. Compared to Express and Fastify, Hono wins on bundle size, edge runtime support, and Web Standards compliance. As of early 2026, it has 14M+ weekly npm downloads and ~30K GitHub stars, making it the de facto standard for edge-first JavaScript APIs.