Cloudflare killed Deno and look I’m on TV!

“Didn’t you already say goodbye to Deno? Get new material!”

I know, I know, but not even a week after declaring my friendship over with Deno they actually killed Deno! The runtime is going away, and sorry call me pessimistic, but I highly doubt a community fork of any value will survive for long.

We will support the Deno runtime for another year with monthly releases containing bug fixes and security updates. After that year we will end our development of the Deno runtime.
Deno is joining Cloudflare - Ryan Dahl

There’s even a Fireship video on YouTube! Guess who gets a namecheck? I’m not going to risk embedding Google cookies so here’s a link: “The runtime wars are over… and Node won” (YouTube). I also found my way into the lead story of JavaScript Weekly.

It’s sad but telling that negative opinions and news around Deno has received the most attention. I have nothing new to say (until my Cloudflare exposé) but I do want to look back on my journey with Deno.

Hatorade

People who’ve only read my recent posts on Deno assume I was just a hater. Far from the case! I was all-in on Deno and wanted it to succeed. While it’s true that my disdain for what the tech industry has become leaked into my criticism, I’d say it was fair and accurate.

The Deno runtime was truly ahead of it’s time. It felt like using Node from the future (now Node today). The runtime was forgotten in favour of whatever tech start-ups do. My doubts grew by mid-2024 but I regained brief optimism with the Deno 2.0 relaunch.

I didn’t realise I’d written this many posts:

You may have noticed my interest in Bun in my earlier writing. That was before I learned it was not a serious project. We don’t use vibe-coded fash-tech in my house.

Deno projects

Deno was my platform for fun side projects (and Advent of Code). I experimented with many silly ideas. A few turned into something practical that I still use today.

Deno Stream Deck (Oct 2022)
The one where I used Deno’s foreign function interface to manage a USB peripheral.
SvelteKit and Deno with OAuth and Deploy (Jun 2023)
The one where I built and maintained a Deno Deploy SvelteKit adapter.
Get in Line, Deno! (Oct 2023)
The one where I used Deno’s streaming APIs to efficiently seek lines.
Git Granary (Jul 2024)
The one where I built a git large file storage server that I still use today.
HTTP Tunnel and Proxy in JavaScript (Oct 2024)
The one where I piped two streams together to create a simple HTTP proxy.
I Let The Emails In (Sept 2025)
The one where I wrote a bare bones SMTP server with Deno.

The SMTP adventure was a disaster, but technically it worked! My private git LFS server has been rock solid. I actually found a use case for the HTTP proxy (blog post to come).

For reasons (sigh), I’m losing interest in publishing open source code and writing tutorials. My self-hosted journey has stalled because I can’t afford anything anymore. Tech sucks now. But I’m finding enjoyment in fighting for an open web (for humans). I’m having fun too blogging more non-technical topics and getting back into design.

I am no longer a JavaScript bro and that’s probably a good thing!

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