Deno Is Joining Cloudflare

For years, the Deno team has been focused on simplifying the process of developing server software. They questioned how modules could be distributed, what security guarantees a JavaScript runtime could provide, and what components should be included in a complete toolchain. Compatibility with Node.js was also a crucial aspect of their work, as users desired the Deno enhancements while still integrating with the existing JavaScript ecosystem.

The team and community created a runtime that brought these capabilities together and challenged existing assumptions about JavaScript development.

Today, the Deno team announced that they are joining Cloudflare to advance this work further. The team's ambition extends beyond just the runtime, aiming for compute, storage, and communication to work together seamlessly within applications without each needing to assemble its own infrastructure. Deno Deploy, a step towards this vision, aimed to simplify the process of running applications, but it also revealed the remaining complexity beneath that developer experience.

This led to the creation of celld, a platform built on the Cloudflare Workers programming model that enables developers to construct distributed applications from the beginning, simplifying the overall system operation.

Kenton Varda and the author of this report, Ry, believe that scaling should be integrated into the programming model rather than requiring applications to assemble their own infrastructure. The progression from Deno to Deno Deploy to celld explains why this strategic move makes sense. Upon joining Cloudflare, the Deno team will collaborate with the Workers and Durable Objects teams, aiming to establish this programming model as the default approach to building servers, regardless of whether they are deployed on Cloudflare's network or the customer's infrastructure.

The team decided to focus their future development efforts on this shared platform rather than continuing to develop a separate runtime and hosting service.

The team acknowledges the impact this change may have on users who have built on Deno, expressing gratitude to all contributors, developers, business owners, problem reporters, and trusted partners. They specifically highlight how Durable Objects, which offer inexpensive, serverless execution, persistent state, WebSockets, and a high-level JavaScript interface, are particularly valuable for agent harnesses.

These features align with their excitement about exploring AI applications and why celld places a strong emphasis on Durable Objects. If you are building agents at scale and want to run them on your own infrastructure, the author invites direct contact at ry@cloudflare.com.