Nitro v3 Beta is here!

A Brief History

Nitro started as the server engine for Nuxt 3, designed to solve a specific problem: deployment-agnostic servers. Over time, Nitro grew beyond Nuxt. It became the foundation for many meta-frameworks and a toolkit for building standalone servers.

With Nitro v3, we took the opportunity to rethink the fundamentals. leaner APIs, Web standards, first-class Rolldown and Vite v8 integration, and a better experience for both humans and agents (more on that later!)

Since we quietly announced v3 alpha.0 (11 Oct 2025) at the first Vite Conf, Nitro v3 has been adopted by many users (~280k weekly downloads!) and refined through amazing contributions and feedback. including Tanstack Start, Vercel Workflows, and production apps like T3Chat.

A huge thanks to the VoidZero (Vite and Rolldown), Nuxt (v5 is coming!) and TanStack Start teams and every contributor who helped bring Nitro v3 to this milestone. ❤️

Why Build Servers?

We don't ship raw source files to the browser. We use build tools because they solve real problems: HMR for instant feedback, code splitting to load only what a route needs, tree shaking to eliminate dead code, and minification for smaller payloads. Tools like Webpack and then Vite transformed frontend development from painful to productive.

But frontend apps don't exist in isolation, they need APIs, databases, authentication, real-time data. They need a server.

With the rise of serverless and edge computing, the server side now faces the same constraints the frontend solved years ago. Cold starts mean every millisecond of startup matters. Memory limits are strict — bloated dependencies can push you over. Bundle size directly impacts deploy speed and boot time. And your code needs to run everywhere: Node.js, Deno, Bun, Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, etc. Yet most server frameworks still ship unoptimized, unbundled code, assuming a long-running process where none of this matters.

Nitro brings the build-tool philosophy to the backend. The same great DX you expect from frontend tooling: HMR for fast iteration and optimized builds powered by Rolldown with tree-shaken production output that performs as close to bare-metal as possible. One codebase, any runtime, any platform.

⚡ First-Class Vite Integration

Nitro now has a native Vite plugin to build full stack apps.

import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import { nitro } from "nitro/vite";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [nitro()],
});

Adding nitro() to your Vite apps gives you:

• API routes via filesystem routing
• Server-side rendering integrated with your frontend build
• A production server — a single vite build produces an optimized .output/ folder with both frontend and backend, ready to deploy

This means you can add a full backend to any Vite project — See examples with React, Vue and Solid.js.

🚀 Performance by Default, Zero Bloat

Nitro compiles your routes at build time. There is no runtime router — each route loads on demand. Only the code needed to handle a specific request is loaded and executed.

Minimal server bundle built with the standard preset is less than 10kB, can be served with srvx at close to native speeds, and includes all the good features from H3.

We have also significantly reduced the number of dependencies, down to less than 20 from 321 dependencies.

🖌️ New Identity: nitro

Nitro v3 ships under a new NPM package: nitro, replacing the legacy nitropack.

All imports now use clean nitro/* subpaths:

import { defineNitroConfig } from "nitro/config";
import { defineHandler } from "nitro";
import { useStorage } from "nitro/storage";
import { useDatabase } from "nitro/database";

No more deep nitropack/runtime/* paths, plus, you can import nitro subpaths outside of builder useful for unit testing.

🔧 Bring Your Own Framework

Nitro v3 is not opinionated about your HTTP layer. You can use the built-in filesystem routing, or take full control with a server.ts entry file and bring any framework you prefer:

import { Hono } from "hono";

const app = new Hono();
app.get("/", (c) => c.text("Hello from Hono!"));

export default app;

🌐 H3 (v2) with Web Standards

Nitro v3 upgrades to H3 v2, which has been fully rewritten around web standard primitives — Request, Response, Headers, and URL.

The result is cleaner, more portable server code:

import { defineHandler } from "nitro";

export default defineHandler((event) => {
  const ua = event.req.headers.get("user-agent");
  return { message: "Hello Nitro v3!", ua };
});

Reading request bodies uses native APIs:

import { defineHandler } from "nitro";

export default defineHandler(async (event) => {
  const body = await event.req.json();
  return { received: body };
});

No wrappers, no abstractions for things the platform already provides. If you know the Web API, you know H3 v2.

Elysia, h3, Hono — anything that speaks web standards works with Nitro.

🗄️ Built-in Primitives

Nitro ships with powerful but small and fully opt-in agnostic server primitives that work across every runtime.

Storage

A runtime-agnostic key-value layer with 20+ drivers — FS, Redis, S3, Cloudflare KV, Vercel Blob and more. Attach drivers to namespaces and swap them without changing your application code.

import { useStorage } from "nitro/storage";

const storage = useStorage();
await storage.setItem("user:1", { name: "Nitro" });

Caching

Cache server routes and functions, backed by the storage layer. Supports stale-while-revalidate, TTL, and custom cache keys out of the box.

import { defineCachedHandler } from "nitro/cache";

export default defineCachedHandler((event) => {
  return "I am cached for an hour";
}, { maxAge: 60 * 60 });

Database

A built-in SQL database that defaults to SQLite for development and can connect to Postgres, MySQL, and more using the same API.

import { useDatabase } from "nitro/database";

const db = useDatabase();
const users = await db.sql`SELECT * FROM users`;

🌍 Deploy Anywhere

Build your server into an optimized .output/ folder compatible with:

• Runtimes: Node.js, Bun, Deno
• Platforms: Cloudflare Workers, Netlify, Vercel, AWS Lambda, Azure, Firebase, Deno Deploy, and more

No configuration needed — Nitro auto-detects your deployment target. Take advantage of platform features like ISR, SWR, and edge rendering without changing a single line of code.

🎨 Server-Side Rendering

Render HTML with your favorite templating engine, or use component libraries like React, Vue, or Svelte directly on the server. Go full universal rendering with client-side hydration.

Nitro provides the foundation and a progressive approach — start with API routes, add rendering when you need it, and scale to full SSR at your own pace.

🟢 Nuxt v5

Nitro v3 will power the next major version of Nuxt.

Nuxt v5 will ship with Nitro v3 and H3 v2 at its core, bringing web-standard request handling, Rolldown-powered builds, and the Vite Environment API to the Nuxt ecosystem.

If you're a Nuxt user, you can already start preparing by familiarizing yourself with Nitro v3's new APIs, which will carry directly into Nuxt 5, and you can follow progress on adopting Nitro v3 in Nuxt

🏁 Getting Started

Create a New Project

npx create-nitro-app

yarn dlx create-nitro-app

pnpm dlx create-nitro-app

bunx create-nitro-app

deno run -A npm:create-nitro-app

See the quick start guide for a full step-by-step walkthrough.

🔄 Migrating from v2

Nitro v3 introduces intentional breaking changes to set a cleaner foundation. Here are the key ones:

• nitropack → nitro (package rename)
• nitropack/runtime/* → nitro/* (clean subpath imports)
• eventHandler → defineHandler (H3 v2)
• createError → HTTPError (H3 v2)
• Web standard event.req headers and body APIs
• Node.js minimum version: 20
• Preset renames and consolidation (e.g., cloudflare → cloudflare_module)

For a complete list, see the migration guide.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Nitro over the years. We can't wait to see what you build with the new Nitro! ❤️

• GitHub — Issues and discussions
• Discord — Chat with the community