Cloudflare acquires Deno, co-founded by Node.js creator Ryan Dahl, which had developed an open-source alternative to Cloudflare Workers and had raised $26M

Cloudflare is buying the startup co-founded by Node.js creator Ryan Dahl, a longtime competitor that recently built its own open-source version …

The New Stack 2026-10-10 Paul Sawers

Context & Ripple Effects

Deno had established itself as a Rust- and V8-based JavaScript, TypeScript and WebAssembly runtime, raising a $21 million Series A in 2022 to build an independent developer platform. Its acquisition brings that alternative runtime inside the company whose Workers product it had challenged.

The deal also follows Cloudflare's acquisition of Human Native in 2026, another move to add specialized technology and teams rather than build every adjacent capability internally. Coverage of the transaction frames Deno as a route for bringing Workers to self-hosted infrastructure; commenters split between concern for Deno's independence and optimism about its reach under Cloudflare.

First-order effects

Cloudflare gains Deno's runtime technology and team, ending Deno's position as an independent developer-platform company competing with Cloudflare Workers.
Deno users and contributors will look to Cloudflare for the runtime's product direction, while Cloudflare can align Deno's open-source work with Workers.

Second-order effects

Cloudflare can use Deno to make the Workers model relevant beyond its hosted platform, putting pressure on runtime and deployment vendors serving self-hosted JavaScript workloads.
The acquisition narrows the distance between an open-source alternative and the cloud service it targeted, changing the competitive choices available to developers seeking that runtime model.

Third-order effects

If Cloudflare carries Workers into self-hosted environments through Deno, edge platforms may compete less on a single hosted runtime and more on whether their developer tooling travels across deployment locations.
The transaction points to a broader consolidation of runtime innovation into infrastructure providers that can pair open-source adoption with a managed platform.

The trend: Cloudflare is extending its developer platform by absorbing an adjacent open-source runtime that can connect hosted edge functions with self-hosted infrastructure.

Discussion

@matthieunapoli Matthieu Napoli on x
“We are excited to shut down Deno” would have been more honest 🤦
@__alula Alula on x
damn this is so sad - node.js is everywhere but it has objective flaws like poor security model compared to deno - deno was cool but never really adopted - bun quickly turned into an overengineered feature creep and became absolute slop after being acquired by Anthropic (it's the…
@samhuckaby Sam Huckaby on x
There has never been a better time to bet on Cloudflare
@threepointone Sunil Pai on x
🤯 what what what
@leostera @leostera on x
ngl i feel like i'm playing some spin off marvel series and robert downey jr walks into the room
@intellectronica Eleanor Berger on x
Oh wow, big deal. Deno is a terrific product and company that was waiting to get the recognition and adoption it deserves. What a win for both companies and for the entire ecosystem.
@saltyaom @saltyaom on x
celld is so good that they have to acquire Deno before it take Durable Object marketshare *this is a joke
@rawkode David Flanagan on x
Wait, Deno is dead?
@saltyaom @saltyaom on x
what
@rtbenfield Tyler Benfield on x
Maybe a hot take but I don't like this one Congrats to both teams. Just disappointed to see Deno going away. Thanks to the Deno team for pushing the ecosystem forward
@fayazara Fayaz Ahmed on x
We made a Merge request to the Deno Project
@maxjendrall @maxjendrall on x
the build cloudflare competitor, get acquired playbook
@nother_pleb @nother_pleb on x
my life rn >laid off from Deno in July >set primary goal to join CloudFlare >apply for CloudFlare in September >coding interview ez pz oneshot a recursive problem >nvm, rejected “jumped too quickly to implementation” (???) >Deno joins CloudFlare i give up
@lifetime0x Frank on x
@deno_land so celld would not be maintained anymore?
@wadg Wilmer Daza on x
@deno_land Guys read between the lines !!!! Deno runtime is over, ah wait, I'm wrong sorry, we still have one year 🤣 ... man !, we should have stayed with node from the beginning #notdeno #notbun
@benjdicken Ben Dicken on x
wow deno comes pre-rewritten in rust
@karatzas_thomas Thomas Karatzas on x
Incredible run! Celld was (obviously) a huge inspiration for us. Exciting for Ryan and team.
@alik_ni Albert on x
@rough__sea Is this the end of the Deno as we know it?
@yoavcodes Yoav on x
Deno is officially dead. Long live Electrobun.
@saltjsx @saltjsx on x
total cloudflare victory
@niapyaya @niapyaya on x
@deno_land nonononoononnnno what are you talking ???
@uwunetes Addison on x
killing deno just really turned me off of cloudflare wtf, someone hard fork asap
@heygarrison Garrison on x
Mad respect for the team at Deno. They built a cocoon and came out a pterodactyl
@neogoose_btw Dmitriy Kovalenko on x
Seems like all denos are doomed to extinction... but seriously very sad to see that all we have now is a port of bun and nodejs
@bentlegen Ben Vinegar on x
with Claude Code + Opencode/OpenTUI being on Bun I'd kind of forgotten about Deno tbh 😬
@d0m96 Dominik Picheta on x
Big news. Excited to welcome the team behind Deno into the Workers Runtime team!
@morpiggg Dito on x
@deno_land discontinuing a runtime used by people? cc @dok2001
@oops4041555 @oops4041555 on x
why the fuck would you be excited over a murder of a good runtime you ingrates
@ajrgd Alex Greenland on x
@wesbos No independent runtimes except Node now! First Bun, now Deno!
@antoniosarosi Antonio Sarosi on x
1. Create JavaScript runtime 2. ??? 4. Get acquired and profit 4. End support for JavaScript runtime ???
@zatlyn Michelle Zatlyn on x
@rough__sea Welcome to the team! Thrilled to be working alongside each other.
@corywilkerson Cory Wilkerson on x
There is some crazy good developer utopia / developer crossroads thing happening here right now. Welcome to @Cloudflare, @deno_land!
@valigo Valentin Ignatev on x
This is sad but makes me a bit vindicated - I was on a project that considered adopting Deno as their main runtime, and I advocated strongly against it. Not based on any particular technical merit, but I just had vibes that they're ngmi because they didn't have strong compatibili…
@bytaesu @bytaesu on x
@CloudflareDev ... > he knows a bit about Node.js 😂 Congrats!!
@archodeveloper @archodeveloper on x
@deno_land Are you guys seriously shutting down the deno runtime??????????
@hsvsphere @hsvsphere on x
I really liked Deno. But it's too good to be true, the average JavaScript developer does not care. Though I hope the people who left deno a few months ago continue maintaining it somehow. In the Age of Slop, I will be reconsidering my dependence on any software developed by a sin…
@rough__sea Ryan Dahl on x
I, along with the rest of the Deno company, am joining Cloudflare! I'm motivated by abstractions that give leverage at scale. The Cloudflare workers programming model is a hermetic computing abstraction that truly embodies the old Sun Microsystems tagline
@wesbos Wes Bos on x
SITUATION DETECTED: Cloudflare acquiring Deno
@forrestpknight Forrest Knight on x
this is huge! written in Rust btw
@zealcaiden @zealcaiden on x
@rough__sea @dok2001 Interesting. We're perfectly happy with our agents on cf DOs rn but the concept of that being portable sounds useful. Well said and congrats!
@evanyou Evan You on x
Welcome @rough__sea and team!
@teej_dv @teej_dv on x
@rough__sea super excited to see what you all come up with!!
@chribjel Christoffer Bjelke on x
Cloudflare has Deno Anthropic has Bun Vercel has ??? OpenAI has ??? ??? has Node
@uwukko @uwukko on x
rip deno, you were a real one
@wunderacle Claudio Wunder on x
@wesbos Deno runtime is sunsetting :(
@nisten @nisten on x
@wesbos that was kinda gonna happen, but now I'm sad though, deno was the last indipendent js runtime to trust :(
@zebassembly Zeb on x
@wesbos THIS IS HOW I LEARN?!?!? Well then... I guess workers is gonna get even better
@dok2001 Dane Knecht on x
Welcome @rough__sea and the @Deno_Land team to Cloudflare. Big plans to come!
r/Deno r on reddit
Deno is joining Cloudflare
r/programming r on reddit
Deno is joining Cloudflare
r/CloudFlare r on reddit
Deno is joining Cloudflare
r/javascript r on reddit
Deno is joining Cloudflare - “We will support the Deno runtime for another year with monthly releases containing bug fixes and security updates. …
r/webdev r on reddit
Deno is joining Cloudflare - “We will support the Deno runtime for another year with monthly releases containing bug fixes and security updates. …
@rough__sea Ryan Dahl on x
Two blog posts to read: - Deno blog https://deno.com/... - Cloudflare blog https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...
James Tan James Tan on linkedin
Super psyched to welcome the Deno team to Cloudflare, including Ryan Dahl the creator of Node.js! 🚀 …
@timkellogg.me Mr. Tim on bluesky
Deno is dead, after acquisition by cloudflare — deno.com/blog/cloudfl... [image]
@hawkticehurst.com Hawk Ticehurst on bluesky
Woah rip Deno — > We will support the Deno runtime for another year ... After that year we will end our development of the Deno runtime. — Wonder what this means for the JS trademark battle with Oracle.. @cloudflare.social wanna do like the coolest thing and be the darling of…
@gordon @gordon on bluesky
Ah deno... of all the js runtimes, it had the best story for agents: strong sandbox, fast runtime, embeddable Rust libs. But Anthropic bought bun. How fortune turns during times of revolution. deno.com/blog/cloudfl...
r/Supabase r on reddit
Deno is joining Cloudflare - and being discontinued in 2027

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