Tsrs: A Port of TypeScript to Rust
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
Cloudflare and VoidZero released an experimental Rust port of TypeScript called tsrs, reporting up to 8x faster checks.
It targets the TypeScript 7 compiler, so faster type checking could reach web development.
Background
TypeScript is Microsoft's typed version of JavaScript, and its compiler is written in JavaScript and later ported to Go by the TypeScript team. Cloudflare, the company behind the announcement, developed tsrs with VoidZero, maker of the Vite JavaScript toolchain, and incubated it inside the Oxc JavaScript compiler toolchain it controls. The port was done by Max Schwenk of Owner.com, with Owner.com sponsoring the initial work. Cloudflare says it chose Rust over Go because compiling Go to WebAssembly drags along its garbage collector, while Rust's memory model allows direct guest-host interactions.
How it unfolded
- Mar 11, 2025Microsoft announced a native port of TypeScript to Go, presented by Anders Hejlsberg as up to 10x improvement in build times.
- Jun 18, 2026The release candidate of TypeScript 7.0 arrived.
- Jul 2026The final version of TypeScript 7.0 was published.
- Oct 17, 2026The GitHub repository oxc-project/tsrs listed 423 stars, 9 forks and 1,789 commits, described as a Rust port of the TypeScript 7 type checker.
- Oct 20, 2026Cloudflare and VoidZero announced they are working with Max Schwenk on tsrs, incubated as part of the Oxc toolchain. Early benchmarks reported it up to 8x faster and using ~70% less memory than TypeScript 7.0 with the same number of type check workers, and an experimental release was made available via npm install tsrs.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Cloudflare says the TypeScript team should remain solely responsible for deciding what the language looks like, and a Rust port has to follow those decisions closely or it will eventually fall apart and become incompatible.
- Official
- The tsrs repository says it is a drop-in replacement for the TypeScript 7 compiler and language server aiming for 100% conformance, and that it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.
- Caution
- Ecosistema Startup notes that a single vendor controlling Vite, Oxc and now a TypeScript port concentrates a lot of power over web development infrastructure, and says the discussion has just begun despite Cloudflare's MIT licenses and US$1 million fund for independent maintainers.
Still unverified
The 8x speed and ~70% memory figures are described as early benchmarks, and the tsrs npm release is described as experimental.