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TSX vs. TS-Node and Nodemon

Which NodeJS runner is fastest for typescript?

Lincoln W Daniel
ModernNerd Code
2 min readOct 21, 2024

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A developer asked the following question on StackOverflow:

How to watch and reload ts-node when TypeScript files change

This article is my answer to that question, with a clear comparison to the leading alternative, tsx. I also include my tsconfig.json and the exact packages I'm using in this setup.

In 2024, ts-node with nodemon is consistently 3 times faster than tsx in a large project, such as the one I use to run ManyStories.com and OurTransfers.com for over a million visitors and customers per year.

I wanted tsx to be faster since it's so much simpler, but it unfortunately is not. I had to change to ts-node after a couple of weeks of wasted time waiting half a minute after every code change for tsx to recompile my code.

I ran the following two scripts:


"scripts": {
"dev-server-tsx": "date && tsx watch --clear-screen=false ./src/serverInstance.ts",
"dev-server-nodemon": "date && nodemon ./src/serverInstance.ts",
}

with these packages:

"nodemon": "^3.1.7",
"ts-node": "^10.9.2",
"tsconfig-paths": "^4.2.0",
"tslib": "^2.8.0",
"tsx": "^4.19.1",

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Lincoln W Daniel
Lincoln W Daniel

Written by Lincoln W Daniel

Chief Bull @ BullAcademy.org ® Elevating writers @ ManyStories.com. Author @JavaForHumans Ex: Editor in Chief MarkGrowth (acq.), Engineer @Medium @GoPuff

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