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Ness.js

Ness.js is a full-stack React framework for applications that render on the server and navigate in the browser. Version 7 provides file-routed React UI, a NestJS backend, streaming SSR, typed data loading and mutations, caching shared across instances, localized routing, optimized assets, and self-hosted deployment that ships as a single directory.

The framework uses React 19, React Router Framework Mode, Vite 8, and standard Request/Response APIs. The default runtime is Node.js; Cloudflare Workers and AWS Lambda adapters are available when an application only uses APIs supported by the target runtime.

Why Ness​

  • React file routes for SSR, navigation, loaders, and actions, plus NestJS controllers for public APIs
  • Convention-based files without hiding the underlying Web APIs
  • Streaming, code splitting, prefetching, and progressive enhancement by default
  • Built-in cache profiles, request deduplication, SWR, tag invalidation, SSG, and ISR
  • Production runtime that can be self-hosted without a platform-specific service
  • Escape hatches through Vite plugins, React Router configuration, middleware, and deployment adapters

On the same application, self-hosted on Node, Ness serves server-rendered routes at roughly twice the throughput of Next.js, builds in about a third of the time, and ships 44% less client JavaScript. It is behind on cold start. The harness, the method, and both sides of the comparison are in Performance.

Start with Create a new application.

The Ness CLI can then install official plugins, generate routes and services, inspect the route tree, update framework packages, and diagnose the project.