What is Rudder?

Rudder is a framework-agnostic Node.js full-stack framework built on Vike and Vite. It gives you service providers, dependency injection, an expressive ORM, a CLI generator, queues, scheduling, auth, validation — everything a typical web application needs — in strict TypeScript, while staying modular and UI-agnostic.

Here's the whole loop — a route loads data with the ORM and returns a view, rendered through Vike with SSR and SPA navigation:

// routes/web.ts
import { Route } from '@rudderjs/router'
import { view } from '@rudderjs/view'
import { Post } from '../app/Models/Post.js'

Route.get('/posts', async () => {
  const posts = await Post.all()
  return view('posts', { posts: posts.map(p => p.toJSON()) })
})

That's it — no Inertia adapter, no JSON envelope, no separate API layer to wire up. Build it end-to-end in the tutorial, or read on for why the framework is shaped this way.

Philosophy

Rudder favors expressive APIs, convention over configuration, and clear lifecycle hooks. The framework should fade into the background while your app's code stays readable.

Three principles shape every package:

Modular. Every feature lives in its own @rudderjs/* package. There is no monolithic install. Add @rudderjs/queue when you need queues, @rudderjs/cache when you need caching. Unused packages are not in your node_modules.

UI-agnostic. Vike handles SSR and page routing. Pair Rudder with React, Vue, Solid, multiple at once, or no frontend at all. Pure API mode is first-class.

Deploy anywhere. Rudder exposes a standard WinterCG Fetch handler. The same bootstrap/app.ts runs on Node, Bun, Deno, and Cloudflare Workers without code changes.

Why Rudder?

Modern Node.js forces a tradeoff: great DX in a framework-locked box (Next.js), freedom with weeks of wiring (Express / Hono), or structure without fullstack views (NestJS / AdonisJS).

Rudder refuses the tradeoff. It's batteries-included, modular, UI-agnostic, and fullstack-first — with AI and real-time as first-class primitives, not afterthoughts.

The shape: one DI container, one CLI, one mental model. Routes return view(). Models query the database. Jobs queue work. Agents call tools. The same TypeScript ergonomics from the HTTP edge to the database row.

What ships in the box

Rudder provides everything a typical web application needs:

• HTTP server with routing, middleware groups, validation, and form requests
• DI container with constructor injection, service providers, and auto-discovery
• ORM with an Eloquent-style query API on the built-in native engine (SQLite/Postgres/MySQL, typed models from migrations) — or Prisma/Drizzle adapters
• Auth with guards, gates, policies, password reset, and email verification
• Sessions backed by HMAC-signed cookies or Redis
• Queues with BullMQ or Inngest, plus a built-in scheduler
• Cache and storage with pluggable drivers (Redis, S3, R2, MinIO)
• Mail and notifications with multi-channel delivery
• AI agents and MCP servers as first-class primitives
• Real-time broadcasting and Y.js-based collaborative sync
• Telescope — request-by-request observability with timeline, query, and event collectors

Optional packages — @rudderjs/passport, @rudderjs/sanctum, @rudderjs/socialite, @rudderjs/boost, @rudderjs/telescope — opt in per project.

Status

Rudder is fully on 1.0+ as of 2026-05-02. The first wave (2026-04-29) graduated 29 packages simultaneously; three follow-up waves over the next four days finished the rest. Every published @rudderjs/* package has a stable public API — breaking changes from here on require explicit major bumps and migration notes.

A 1.0 badge is only as good as what backs it — Quality describes exactly how the framework is tested and released, and When Not to Use Rudder is honest about where another tool fits better.

Versioning

Rudder uses independent versioning — each @rudderjs/* package has its own version line, the same model Laravel's first-party packages, AdonisJS, and most of the npm ecosystem use.

What you'll see across the workspace:

• 1.0.x — packages that graduated in one of the four waves. Stable public API, breaking changes require a major bump.
• Higher majors (auth@5.x, cashier-paddle@3.x, cli@4.x, horizon@6.x, mcp@5.x, pulse@6.x, queue@4.x, sanctum@7.x, telescope@13.x) — packages that were already past 1.0 before the graduation, plus the cascade-major-bumps from each wave. The number reflects iteration history, not "more important."

core@1.x and telescope@13.x are equally stable; the spread is informative, not asymmetric.

Where to next

• Installation — scaffold your first project
• Directory Structure — get oriented
• Request Lifecycle — how a request flows through the framework