Vercel Labs debuts scriptc, a TypeScript-to-native experimental compiler
The experimental tool compiles TypeScript to native binaries across major platforms, offering fast startup without bundling a JavaScript engine.
Vercel Labs released scriptc, an experimental Apache 2.0 compiler that turns TypeScript into native executables without bundling Node, V8 or a JavaScript engine by default. It uses the TypeScript compiler for parsing and type checks, converts programs into typed intermediate representation, and can emit C, LLVM IR, assembly, object files, executables or WASI modules; code can also run through an embedded QuickJS engine with `--dynamic`, or be rejected with an SC error and rewrite hint. In tests of scriptc 0.0.16, median command-line startup was 1.78ms, compared with 21.29ms for Bun 1.3.12 and 61.78ms for Node 24.18.0; a framework-free `node:http` server used 1.9MiB of idle memory. Hono required `--dynamic`, which sent 62% of the server through QuickJS and yielded 18.4k requests per second, versus 70.5k for Bun. The compiler targets macOS, Linux, Windows and WASI Preview 1, but remains explicitly experimental.
Why it matters
scriptc gives TypeScript developers a way to produce native executables that start quickly and use little memory, while still supporting a dynamic mode when needed. Early benchmarks show much faster command-line startup and low idle memory use for a simple server, though more complex frameworks may fall back heavily on an embedded JavaScript engine and see lower throughput than alternatives. The project runs on macOS, Linux, Windows and WASI Preview 1 but is clearly marked as experimental.
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Sources
- InfoQ