Perry

Write TypeScript. Ship native. Everywhere.

Perry compiles the TypeScript you already write into real machine-code executables — for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, watchOS, and TV. No Node.js to install. No Electron to bundle. No runtime at all. Just a binary. (The same codebase can also target the web, emitted as JavaScript or WebAssembly.)

Website · Documentation · Showcase · Examples

perry compile src/main.ts -o myapp
./myapp    # a standalone native binary — ~330 KB for hello world

The language you know. The deployment you wish it had.

Millions of developers write TypeScript every day — but shipping it has always meant shipping a JavaScript engine: a Node install on every server, ~100 MB of embedded runtime per CLI, or a whole browser engine per desktop app. Perry removes the engine. SWC parses your code, LLVM compiles it to machine code, and you get what systems languages get: instant cold starts, tiny self-contained binaries, real threads — without leaving TypeScript.

_{Table describes Perry's native targets. --target web / --target wasm emit JavaScript / WebAssembly that runs in the browser rather than as a native binary.}

Performance

Ahead-of-time machine code means no engine boot and no JIT warmup — and on measured workloads, real multiples over the JS runtimes. Highlights from our open benchmark harnesses (Apple M1 Max, medians of repeated runs):

Look at the Rust column again: on convolution, fibonacci, and the array-write loop, TypeScript compiled with Perry runs even with — or ahead of — Rust. And Electron isn't in the table because it doesn't compete here: it ships a whole browser engine per app, where a comparable Perry app is a single-digit-MB native binary.

_{Sources: convolution & JSON from the systems-language report — pinned to 7beb3a50ca, the last revision whose artifact contains these values; the copy at HEAD was regenerated in #7641 on a host where the harness clock was invalid and now reads 0.0 ms in every timing cell (see this PR). Re-pin to main once it is regenerated. Fibonacci, object allocation & array write from the polyglot sweep (Perry default mode, no fast-math).}

We publish everything, including the workloads where V8's JIT still beats us — no cherry-picked table can survive an open harness. Run it yourself: ./benchmarks/run_public_baseline.sh (methodology).

The full published suite, generated from the artifact — including the rows we lose

Generated from benchmarks/results/public-node-bun-v1.json at Perry commit b77aba63433b. Lower wall-clock median is better; every row includes complete raw samples and passed correctness checks.

Benchmark	Perry	Node.js	Bun	Result	What it tests
factorial	93 ms	95 ms	95 ms	win vs both	Modular accumulation
method_calls	35 ms	11 ms	8 ms	loss vs both	Class method dispatch
closure	47 ms	49 ms	49 ms	win vs both	Closure creation and invocation
binary_trees	13 ms	6 ms	6 ms	loss vs both	Tree allocation and traversal
string_concat	6 ms	31 ms	5 ms	mixed	String append loop
prime_sieve	6 ms	5 ms	5 ms	loss vs both	Sieve of Eratosthenes
mandelbrot	25 ms	24 ms	29 ms	mixed	Complex-number iteration
matrix_multiply	19 ms	33 ms	33 ms	win vs both	Matrix multiplication
json_roundtrip	144 ms	379 ms	219 ms	win vs both	Parse and stringify ~1 MB JSON

Why developers pick Perry

• ⚡ Native speed, zero warmup. LLVM-optimized machine code with escape analysis, scalar replacement, and a generational GC — see the numbers above.
• 📦 Binaries you can actually email. Hello world is ~330 KB. Perry links only the runtime your program uses. A real MongoDB GUI built with Perry ships as a ~7 MB app.
• 🔌 Your Node code mostly just works. ~97% pass rate on Node's own test suite across 53 node:* modules — real implementations of fs, http/http2, net/tls, crypto, stream, child_process, worker_threads, fetch and the web globals, plus ~50 popular npm packages (Fastify, Express, mysql2, pg, ioredis, ws, bcrypt, jsonwebtoken…). Plain JavaScript compiles too.
• 🖥️ One UI codebase, 11 targets. A SwiftUI-like API that compiles to real platform widgets — macOS, iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, tvOS, watchOS, Android, Wear OS, Windows, Linux, Web/WASM. Even home-screen widgets.
• 🧵 All your cores, safely. parallelMap, parallelFilter, and spawn on real OS threads — the compiler rejects shared mutable state, so data races don't compile.
• 🔋 Batteries included. Databases, WebSockets, containers, i18n, keychain, notifications, auto-update, a TUI framework — natively implemented and statically linked.

Get started in 60 seconds

# Install (macOS · Linux · Windows)
npm install -g @perryts/perry     # or: brew install perryts/perry/perry
                                  # or: winget install PerryTS.Perry

# Create and run a project
perry init my-app && cd my-app
perry run .

npm packages and ES modules work as you'd expect:

import fastify from 'fastify';

const app = fastify();
app.get('/api/users', async () => [{ id: 1, name: 'Alice' }]);
app.listen({ port: 3000 }, () => console.log('Listening on :3000'));

perry compile src/main.ts -o api && ./api    # one binary — no node_modules on the server

Same code, other platforms: --target ios, --target android, --target web… full list in the platforms guide. APT, Scoop, install script, and source builds are in the installation guide; run perry doctor to verify your setup.

Built with Perry

Real products, shipping today:

More in the showcase — built something with Perry? Open a PR and add it.

Documentation

Everything else lives in the docs:

• Getting started — install, hello world, project config
• Language support — supported TypeScript features and limitations
• Native UI · Multi-threading · Standard library
• Platforms — per-platform guides from macOS to watchOS to WASM
• CLI reference — commands, flags, perry.toml, privacy & telemetry
• Contributing — architecture, building from source, and the release process

Community

Perry is built in the open — come say hi:

• 💬 Join the Discord — get help, share what you're building, and talk directly to the people building Perry
• 🐛 Issues — bug reports and feature requests
• 🚀 Showcase — apps the community is shipping

Privacy

Telemetry is opt-in: nothing leaves your machine unless you explicitly enable it in ~/.perry/config.toml, and PERRY_NO_TELEMETRY=1 (or CI=true) always wins. What can be sent is anonymous and redacted — never your source, paths, or project names. Inspect it any time with perry doctor, and see exactly what's in the payload in the privacy & telemetry docs.

Sponsors

Perry's development is backed by our sponsors. 🙏

💎 Skelpo — Premium Sponsor

Want to support Perry and see your logo here? Get in touch via perryts.com.

License

MIT