# holepunchto/bare

Small and modular JavaScript runtime for desktop and mobile

Repository: https://github.com/holepunchto/bare
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/bare
Homepage: https://bare.pears.com
Language: C
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-09-02T12:20:06+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 100, release rhythm 97, longevity 96
- inputs: {"age_days": 1354, "days_push": 0, "days_rel": 21, "gap_med": 1, "n_releases_24m": 18}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1222, forks 32 (observed 2026-09-03T02:15:12.744767+00:00)

## What it is
Bare is a small, modular JavaScript runtime built on V8 (via libjs) and libuv, designed for desktop and mobile with embedding and cross-device support as core use cases. It provides an asynchronous, event-driven architecture like Node.js, with CJS/ESM interop, native addons, and lightweight threads, making it well suited for peer-to-peer applications.

## Use cases
- run javascript on mobile and desktop from one runtime
- embed a javascript engine in a native application
- build peer-to-peer networked apps in javascript
- lightweight alternative to node.js
- run javascript on embedded or low-resource hardware
- write cross-platform scripts with node-like apis

## When to choose
- you need a minimal, embeddable JS runtime across phones and desktops
- you want Node-like async JavaScript with a smaller footprint
- you're building P2P apps in the Pear/Holepunch ecosystem

## When to avoid
- you rely on the full Node.js standard library and npm ecosystem compatibility
- you need mature, battle-tested production tooling and long-term LTS support
- your project depends on Node-specific native modules

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: interpreter, concurrency, http-server, developer-tools
- domain: programming-languages, developer-tools, cross-platform, mobile-development, desktop-applications
- platform: windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: javascript-runtime, v8, libuv, nodejs-alternative, embeddable, p2p, native-addons, esm, cjs, linux, macos, android, ios

## Member repositories
- holepunchto/bare (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-09-03T02:15:12.744767+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:16:13.379949+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/holepunchto/bare (fetched 2026-09-03T02:15:12.744767+00:00, sha 5f16fa4af827)
  - homepage: https://bare.pears.com (fetched 2026-08-29T12:24:28.765287+00:00, sha 5999bdd3a474)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.