Deno Deploy: What It Actually Is and Why Developers Are Split

Serverless edge computing hit $7.2 billion in market size last year. Developers are moving code closer to users. Deno Deploy is part of this shift.​

It's a platform that runs JavaScript and TypeScript on the edge. No servers. No config files. Just code that runs in 28 locations worldwide.​

But here's what nobody tells you upfront. It's fast until it's not.

What Deno Deploy actually does

Deno Deploy runs your code on V8 isolates. The same tech that powers Chrome and Cloudflare Workers. When someone hits your app, it runs on the server closest to them.​

You write TypeScript. No build step. No webpack. No package.json. You push to GitHub and it deploys.​

One developer handles 2 million requests per day on it. Another built a Siri-to-OpenAI function in a morning. The free tier gives you 1 million requests monthly.​

The promise is simple. Write code. Deploy instantly. Run everywhere.

The cold start problem everyone hits

Cold starts should be fast on edge platforms. That's the whole point.

Deno Deploy advertises near-instant cold starts. Reality is messier.​

Developers report cold starts between 100ms and 6 seconds. Same app. Same traffic patterns. Just random. One developer said it defeats the point of edge hosting.​

Here's what causes slow starts:

• Large dependencies that download on first run​

• Complex initialization code​

• Import statements that aren't bundled​

The fix is annoying. You have to bundle your dependencies ahead of time. Or keep your imports minimal. But then you're back to build steps.​

When it works well

Small APIs fly on Deno Deploy. If your function is under 100 lines and uses standard web APIs, cold starts stay under 100ms.​

Cron jobs work great too. You get scheduled tasks built in. No separate service needed.​

Edge functions for caching or redirects are perfect. Minimal code. Fast execution. Close to users.​

How it compares to the alternatives

Vercel gives you more memory. Cloudflare has more locations. But Deno Deploy needs zero config.​

The developer experience split

Half the developers love it. "Integrated toolchain is fantastic". "Works out the box".​

The other half hit reliability issues. Free tier sites go down randomly. Paid V1 was more stable than V2.​

One developer said their V2 free tier apps have occasional downtime. Their paid V1 app runs fine. The pricing page doesn't promise better uptime for Pro plans.​

The package.json thing

This is where Deno Deploy gets interesting.

No node_modules folder. No package-lock conflicts. You import directly from URLs.​

import { serve } from "https://deno.land/std/http/server.ts"

It sounds weird. It works. You can also use npm packages with npm: prefix.​

But here's the catch. Those URL imports can slow cold starts. The runtime downloads them on first run. Unless you bundle them. Which adds complexity back.​

You trade package.json for import management.

Not everything belongs on the edge

One developer tried building a caching layer on Deno Deploy. Failed completely.​

The problem is statelessness. Each request spawns a new instance. You can't keep data in memory between requests.​

Deno Deploy has KV storage now. But it's not the same as in-memory caching. There's network overhead.​

Long-running processes don't work either. Background jobs that take minutes will time out. Deno Deploy wants fast in-and-out functions.​

If you need persistent connections or heavy computation, use a traditional server. Edge isn't for everything.​

What actually works

• API endpoints that fetch and transform data​

• Webhooks that trigger other services​

• Authentication middleware​

• Static site generation with dynamic routes

• Cron jobs for scheduled tasks​

What doesn't work:

• WebSocket servers that need persistent connections

• Image processing that takes 30+ seconds

• Database migrations​

• File uploads over 5MB

The tooling is actually good

The deno CLI does everything. Format code. Run tests. Bundle for production. Deploy.​

bashdeno task dev     # runs dev server
deno deploy       # pushes to production

No separate tools. No prettier config. No jest setup. It's all built in.​

You can also self-host with deployd. Run Deno Deploy on your own infrastructure. Keep the developer experience. Control the servers.​

Compare that to Node. You need nodemon, jest, eslint, prettier, webpack, and babel. Each with its own config file.

The integrated toolchain is the actual innovation here.

The naming confusion

People mix up three things:

1. Deno - the runtime (like Node.js)

2. Deno Deploy - the hosting platform (like Vercel)

3. deployd - the self-hosting tool​

You can use Deno runtime without Deploy. You can use Deploy without knowing Deno deeply. And you can self-host the whole thing.​

This trips up new users. They think it's all one product.

My coworker self-hosts everything

He hates platforms. Doesn't trust free tiers. Says they always rug-pull pricing.

He tried Deno Deploy anyway. Free tier. Small project. It worked for three months.

Then random 500 errors started. No pattern. No logs. Just occasional failures.​

He moved to self-hosting with deployd. Same code. His VPS. Zero downtime since.​

The platform is good. The reliability on free tier is questionable. If you're serious, either pay or self-host.​

The real limitations

512MB memory cap. This kills certain use cases. Image processing. Large file parsing. Complex computations.​

Vercel gives you 3GB. That's 6x more headroom.​

No background jobs beyond cron. You can't queue tasks. No equivalent to AWS SQS. Everything has to finish in one request.​

Monitoring is basic. You get logs and basic metrics. But distributed debugging is hard. You can't SSH into edge servers.​

Ecosystem is young. Fewer libraries. Less Stack Overflow answers. More figuring things out yourself.​

The pricing question

Free tier is generous. 1 million requests. 100GB bandwidth.​

Pro is $20/month. But it's unclear if you get better uptime. The pricing page doesn't say.​

One developer pays for V1, uses free V2. The paid plan performs better. But V2 free tier has issues even within limits.​

When to actually use it

Use Deno Deploy if:

• You're building small APIs or webhooks​

• You want zero config TypeScript​

• Your traffic is global and latency matters​

• You hate node_modules​

Skip it if:

• You need persistent connections​

• Your functions are memory-heavy

• You require guaranteed uptime​

• You're doing heavy data processing​

Side projects are perfect for it. Production apps need more testing. One developer is about to launch after months of work. Another ships multiple sites with millions of requests.​

The TypeScript tax

Deno runs TypeScript natively. No compilation step. This sounds perfect.​

But. You still write type definitions. You still debug type errors. You just skip the build step.

Is that worth switching runtimes? For some developers, yes. For others, it's not enough.​

The real win is the standard library. Deno's std lib is promise-based and modern. Node's is callback hell.​

What developers are actually saying

Reddit and developer forums show a pattern.​

Positive reactions:

• "Pleasant developer experience, works out the box"​

• "No more package conflicts"​

• "Integrated toolchain is fantastic"​

• "Perfect for side projects"​

Negative reactions:

• "Cold starts defeat the point of edge"​

• "Not viable for professional use"​

• "Last week was challenging"​

• "Free tier has downtime"​

Mixed reviews:

• "Lots of pros and lots of cons"​

• "Feelings are mixed"​

• "Works great until it doesn't"​

The edge computing market is growing. Deno Deploy is riding that wave. But it's still maturing.​

Things i wish i knew earlier

Feature flags work better than canary deployments. You deploy new code wrapped in conditionals. Control who sees it. No infrastructure changes.​

Deno KV is underrated. Simple key-value store. Lives at the edge. Good for feature flags and caching.​

Cold starts matter more than you think. Test under real load. Not just local dev.​

The dashboard logs are real-time. Across all 28 locations. That's actually useful for debugging.​

You can run Node apps with deno run. Most work without changes. Good for migration testing.​

Is it worth it in 2026

Depends what you're building.

For quick APIs and side projects? Absolutely. The setup is minutes. The free tier is solid.​

For production SaaS? Maybe. Test thoroughly. Have monitoring. Consider paid tier or self-hosting.​

For enterprise apps? Not yet. The cold start variance is too high. Reliability needs work.​

The platform shows promise. The tooling is genuinely good. But it's competing with Cloudflare Workers and Vercel.​

Cloudflare has 300+ locations. Vercel has more memory. Deno Deploy has simpler DX.​

Pick based on your bottleneck. If it's developer time, Deno wins. If it's user latency, Cloudflare wins. If it's complex builds, Vercel wins.

For me, i'd use it for the next webhook or small API. Not for anything mission-critical. Not yet.