TypeScript Just Got 10x Faster by Not Being TypeScript

Table of Contents Introduction Putting the 10x Claim Into Perspective How Did We Get Here? This Was an Extensive Evaluation The Priority Was Compatibility Why Not Rust? Why Not C#? Why Go Fit the Existing Compiler A Port, Not a Simple Translation Where Does the Performance Come From? Native Execution Parallel Processing Memory Efficiency and Larger Projects The Benchmarks Memory Usage The JavaScript API Trade Off Is It Still TypeScript? The F1 Analogy Large Companies Helped Test TypeScript 7 Should You Upgrade? Final Thoughts Introduction At the end of March 2025, I published this article: Go-ing Beyond TypeScript: Microsoft Picks Go: How Will This Change the Landscape? Giorgi Kobaidze Giorgi Kobaidze Giorgi Kobaidze Follow Mar 31 '25 Go-ing Beyond TypeScript: Microsoft Picks Go: How Will This Change the Landscape? # microsoft # typescript # go # csharp 1 reaction 2 comments 12 min read At the time, Microsoft's decision to port the TypeScript compiler to Go sparked quite a bit of discussion and controversy. Many people questioned whether moving such a critical piece of the ecosystem away from TypeScript was the right choice. And boy, did Microsoft deliver what it promised: an order-of-magnitude performance improvement on some of the world's largest TypeScript codebases. The results are here, and the benchmarks speak for themselves. Putting the 10x Claim Into Perspective The phrase "10x faster" describes the scale of the improvement Microsoft has demonstrated. It does not guarantee that every codebase will become exactly ten times faster. The results depend on the size of the project, the work being performed, and the available hardware. Some projects might see a 5x improvement, while others could reach 8x, 10x, 12x, or potentially even more. No, this doesn't make every TypeScript developer a 10x developer , But it does mean that compiling a TypeScript project, loading it in an editor, and receiving diagnostics could become dramatically faster after moving to the nat