Page MenuHomePhorge
Files F4503558

README.md
No OneTemporary
Actions

Size
2 KB
Referenced Files
None
Subscribers
None

README.md
View Options

# 🐜 Ant
**A 5MB JavaScript runtime with 1ms cold starts.**
Ant is a lightweight, high-performance JavaScript runtime built from scratch. <br>
Fits in your pocket while Delivering near-V8 speeds in a binary smaller than most npm packages.
```
$ ls -lh ant
-rwxr-xr-x⠀5.2M⠀ant*
```
## Table of contents
- [Why Ant?](#why-ant)
- [Installation](#installation)
- [Spec conformance](#spec-conformance)
- [Building Ant](#building-ant)
- [Security](#security)
- [Community](#community)
- [Contributing to Ant](#contributing-to-ant)
## Why Ant?
| | Ant | Node | Bun | Deno |
| ------------------- | ----------- | --------- | -------- | --------- |
| Binary size | **~5 MB** | ~120 MB | ~60 MB | ~90 MB |
| Cold start | **~3-5 ms** | ~30-50 ms | ~5-10 ms | ~20-30 ms |
| Engine | Ant Silver | V8 | JSC | V8 |
| JIT | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| WinterTC conformant | partial | partial | ✓ | ✓ |
Ant is designed for environments where size and startup time matter: serverless functions, edge computing, embedded systems, CLI tools, and anywhere you'd want JavaScript but can't afford a 50MB+ runtime.
The engine, Ant Silver is hand-built, not a wrapper around V8, JSC, or SpiderMonkey. The JIT compiler uses [MIR](https://github.com/vnmakarov/mir), a lightweight JIT backend that enables compiled performance in a fraction of the binary size of traditional JIT engines.
## Installation
```bash
curl -fsSL https://ant.themackabu.com/install | bash
# or with MbedTLS
curl -fsSL https://ant.themackabu.com/install | MBEDTLS=1 bash
```
## Spec conformance
Ant plans to fully target the [WinterTC Minimum Common API](https://min-common-api.proposal.wintertc.org/) specification, the standard for server-side JavaScript interoperability developed by Ecma TC55.
| Suite | Pass rate | Notes |
| ---------------- | --------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| js-zoo (ES1–ES5) | ~100% | |
| js-zoo (ES6) | ~80%\* | \*Generators unsupported |
| js-zoo (ES2016+) | ~85% | |
| test262 | ~40% | Improving, focus is on real-world coverage |
## Building Ant
See [BUILDING.md](BUILDING.md) for instructions on how to build Ant from source and a list of supported platforms.
## Security
For information on reporting security vulnerabilities in Ant, see [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md).
## Community
- [Discord](http://discord.gg/CH7YSjWGzY)
- [Blog: Building Ant](https://s.tail.so/js-in-one-month)
- [DeepWiki: Ant internals](https://deepwiki.com/theMackabu/ant)
## Contributing to Ant
We welcome contributions through pull request. See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for more details. <br>
For information about the governance of Ant, see [GOVERNANCE.md](GOVERNANCE.md).

File Metadata

Mime Type
text/plain
Expires
Sun, May 3, 9:30 AM (1 d, 11 h)
Storage Engine
blob
Storage Format
Raw Data
Storage Handle
520462
Default Alt Text
README.md (2 KB)

Event Timeline