Cloudflare on Friday announced it is acquiring Deno, the developer of the runtime of the same name. The move is part of Cloudflare's efforts to expand the capabilities of the Cloudflare Workers platform and broaden adoption of the Worker programming model for building and running software.
According to Kenton Varda, principal engineer for Cloudflare Workers, the acquisition will help Cloudflare improve its programming model and software development infrastructure.
The Cloudflare Workers platform allows developers to build and run their applications directly on Cloudflare’s network. The company now hopes to expand the platform’s capabilities by leveraging Deno’s technology and team experience.
The creator of Node.js joins Cloudflare
Deno was founded by Bert Belder and Ryan Dahl. Dahl previously played a major role in developing web programming tools by creating Node.js, one of the best-known JavaScript runtimes.
Deno is also a runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript developed to provide a platform for running applications.
Ryan Dahl reacted to the acquisition by saying the Deno team is joining Cloudflare to make the Worker programming model one of the common ways to build servers.
These remarks indicate the two companies’ goal is not only to develop Cloudflare Workers, but also to expand adoption of this programming model beyond a single platform.
The role of the open-source celld project in this acquisition
One notable aspect of the deal is the open-source celld project, which Deno recently introduced. This project is an open-source implementation of the Worker model and apparently attracted the attention of Cloudflare engineers.
Kenton Varda said the release of celld made the Cloudflare team happy.
He also referred to a view that Cloudflare intentionally designed Workers to work differently from other cloud platforms to keep developers dependent on its services.
Varda rejected that notion and explained that, contrary to such an impression, Cloudflare welcomes the development of open-source technologies and enabling migration of applications to other infrastructures.
He said that making the technology open source and providing a way for users to exit a platform can also be a sound commercial decision. This stance is significant because developers’ dependency on a particular cloud provider is a topic of discussion in the cloud computing industry.
Financial details of the Deno acquisition not disclosed
Despite announcing the agreement, Cloudflare has not released financial details of the transaction or its final value.
Deno had previously raised a total of $26 million in funding. Part of that funding was raised in a Series A round led by venture firm Sequoia.
The acquisition of Deno could help Cloudflare, by leveraging the experience of that company’s developers, to strengthen the Workers programming model and increase its adoption among developers.
At the same time, the two companies’ emphasis on open-source technologies indicates that, at least according to their executives, expanding this programming model is not intended to be limited solely to Cloudflare’s proprietary infrastructure.