Today's story: Bun runtime
Bun runtime jumps four spots as space attention saturates
Bun runtime climbs to No. 11 with 1.19× install growth, while Starship holds the top spot for a fourth day.
The numbers: Bun runtime is today's biggest mover: up 4 places to No. 11, installs at 1.19× the four-week pace. Bun runtime: 1.1× momentum across 2 signals. 7 of 21 trends are climbing and 3 are cooling. SpaceX Starship still leads the board at 2.4× (day 4).
Backfilled on October 7, 2026 using only data published by October 4, 2026.
Bun runtime, signal by signal
Each pedestal is one signal: its height is last week's typical day against the four weeks before, and the ring marks that normal. A lit pedestal is rising 1.15× or more.
Bun runtime is today's biggest mover: up 4 places to No. 11, installs at 1.19× the four-week pace.
Bun runtime: 758k npm installs a day on a typical day last week, against 639k the four weeks before
Bars are single days, the line is the 7-day average, the shaded band is the last 7 days and the dashed line is the four-week typical day (median).
Data through npm 10/02, Wikipedia 10/03, HN 10/03. Source: npm downloads API.
Bun runtime gained four positions to reach No. 11, driven by daily installs hitting 758k, which is 1.19× the four-week average. This marks a distinct acceleration in developer tooling adoption. Meanwhile, SpaceX Starship retains the No. 1 position for the fourth consecutive day, showing sustained momentum despite a 2.4× attention spike that has stabilized.
The rise of Bun runtime contrasts with the cooling of adjacent tech areas. Quantum computing and robotaxis both show declining interest, with momentum dropping to 0.82× and 0.74× respectively. This divergence suggests builders are prioritizing immediate execution environments over speculative hardware or autonomous systems. The focus has narrowed to practical runtime performance.
Starlink and Passkeys continue climbing, adding context to the broader hardware and security trends. Starlink saw a 1.25× increase in Wikipedia mentions, while Passkeys reached 1.0M daily installs. However, the most significant change today is the reassertion of Bun runtime within the developer stack. It signals a preference for fast, integrated tools that support rapid deployment over slower, fragmented ecosystems.
Watch next: Monitor if Bun runtime maintains its 1.19× install pace against the stabilizing Starship attention.
Column drafted by qwen/qwen3.8-27b from the numbers below; every figure checked against them.
The numbers
On a typical day last week, npm installs of bun reached 758k, 1.19× the 639k of a typical day in the four weeks before. The Wikipedia article "Bun (software)" drew 244 readers on a typical day last week, 1.01× its four-week norm of 241.
Still No. 1 for day 4: SpaceX Starship at 2.4×, with Wikipedia readers at 2.4× (3,302 on a typical day against 1,378).
Quiet adoption: Bun runtime installs run at 1.19× their four-week pace while attention sits at 1.01×. Developers are adding it faster than people are reading about it.
Cooling fastest: Smart glasses at 0.74×, with Wikipedia readers down to 169 on a typical day from 230.
The long view: OpenAI Codex installs over the last four weeks are 117× the same four weeks a year earlier (3.4M a day against 29k).
Trend pages: SpaceX StarshipPasskeysSmall modular reactorsSmart glasses
Broad riseOne-day spike7 of 21 trends are climbing; SpaceX Starship leads at 2.4×
Momentum is a typical day (median) of the last 7 divided by a typical day of the 28 before, averaged across every signal with enough data. 1× means no change. Rings mark each signal.
Data through npm 10/02, Wikipedia 10/03, HN 10/03. Source: npm downloads API, Wikimedia pageviews, Hacker News search.
5 of 7 developer tools are being installed faster than they are being read about
Across: attention momentum (Wikipedia readers and Hacker News stories). Up: install momentum (npm). Both on log scales; the 1× lines split the corners.
Data through npm 10/02, Wikipedia 10/03, HN 10/03. Source: npm downloads API, Wikimedia pageviews, Hacker News search.
SpaceX Starship draws the most Wikipedia readers against its own normal: 2.4× over the last week
Each cell is one day's readers divided by that trend's four-week typical day. Brighter runs hot, darker runs cold.
Data through npm 10/02, Wikipedia 10/03, HN 10/03. Source: Wikimedia pageviews API, user agents only.
Every number on the board
| SpaceX Starship | Space | 2.4× | Breakout | – | – | 3,302 | 2.4× | 1.7 | 9.6×* | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passkeys | Web platform | 1.31× | Climbing | 1.0M | 1.31× | 86 | 0.97×* | 0.0 | 0×* | 0 |
| Small modular reactors | Energy | 1.3× | Climbing | – | – | 595 | 1.3× | 0.0 | 0×* | 0 |
| Starlink | Space | 1.25× | Climbing | – | – | 2,470 | 1.25× | 0.9 | 1.85×* | 1 |
| Solid-state batteries | Energy | 1.23× | Climbing | – | – | 489 | 1.23× | 0.0 | 0×* | 0 |
| AI API SDKs | AI agents | 1.21× | Climbing | 21M | 1.21× | – | – | – | – | 0 |
| OpenAI Codex | AI coding | 1.19× | Climbing | 3.9M | 1.16× | 50 | 1.33×* | 5.3 | 1.23× | 0 |
| AI agents | AI agents | 1.14× | Steady | 755k | 1.25× | 1,047 | 0.89× | 15 | 1.34× | 2 |
| WebGPU | Web platform | 1.14× | Steady | 1.7M | 1.23× | 135 | 1.06× | 1.0 | 1.47×* | 0 |
| Model Context Protocol | AI agents | 1.12× | Steady | 12M | 1.23× | 1,538 | 1.08× | 7.3 | 1.07× | 0 |
| Bun runtime | Web platform | 1.1× | Steady | 758k | 1.19× | 244 | 1.01× | 0.9 | 0.89×* | 0 |
| Claude Code | AI coding | 1.09× | Steady | 2.4M | 1.08× | – | – | 7.4 | 1.11× | 0 |
| Gemini CLI | AI coding | 1.09× | Steady | 70k | 1.09× | – | – | 0.0 | n/a* | 0 |
| Local LLMs | AI agents | 1.08× | Steady | 192k | 1.13× | 721 | 1.03× | 1.1 | 1.88×* | 0 |
| Heat pumps | Energy | 1.08× | Steady | – | – | 510 | 1.08× | 0.0 | 0×* | 0 |
| Vibe coding | AI coding | 1.06× | Steady | – | – | 1,687 | 1.17× | 1.1 | 0.97× | 0 |
| Humanoid robots | Robots | 0.91× | Steady | – | – | 338 | 0.91× | 0.9 | 1.09×* | 1 |
| eVTOL air taxis | Space | 0.89× | Steady | – | – | 182 | 0.89× | 0.0 | 0×* | 0 |
| Quantum computing | Devices | 0.82× | Cooling | – | – | 1,721 | 0.97× | 2.1 | 0.69× | 0 |
| Robotaxis | Robots | 0.74× | Cooling | – | – | 186 | 0.74× | 0.3 | 0.67×* | 2 |
| Smart glasses | Devices | 0.74× | Cooling | – | – | 169 | 0.74× | 0.3 | 0.4×* | 0 |
| Vehicle-to-grid | Energy | n/a | Not enough data | – | – | 58 | 0.92×* | 0.0 | 0×* | 1 |
Method and sources
Every trend gets up to three free, daily signals. Installs: npm registry downloads for the packages named on each trend page (developer adoption; it counts CI and mirrors too, so it measures direction, not people). Attention: English Wikipedia readers per day, human agents only, and Hacker News stories with the term in the title. For each signal we divide a typical day (the median) of the last 7 complete days by a typical day of the 28 days before. Medians keep one launch-day spike from carrying a whole week; both windows are whole weeks, so weekend dips sit equally in both. Momentum is the geometric mean of the signals that clear a minimum base. npm reports some days as zero for every package at once; we treat those as missing.
The column is drafted by a free language model from the day's computed facts only, and is published only if every number in it matches those facts; otherwise the computed paragraphs stand alone. Theme labels come from Jev (or its Cloudflare Clef fallback, as noted) choosing from a fixed list of ten.
Stages: Breakout 1.5× and up, Climbing 1.15×, Steady 0.87× to 1.15×, Cooling below. Raw data: /api/trends/2026-10-04.json.