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by SahAssar 2308 days ago
It calls expressjs minimalist, but it has 52 dependencies.

I really feel like we really need to reconsider what "minimalist" means in the js ecosystem.

2 comments

A real minimalist web framework for Node is Koa. Basically anything besides the bare minimum is a separate dependency, so you only install what you need.

That said, it probably means minimalist in a usage sense. Compared to things like Nest.js (which I love, don't get me wrong), express is a lot more straightforward and basic.

Koa is better but still has 43 dependencies...
23 according to npm, with a size of 83kb. Sounds pretty minimal to me.
NPM only counts direct dependencies, so the reality is almost always higher.
I think the author wants to say that it’s like at the opposite of frameworks like Adonisjs, Sailsjs or Rails.