Your Node.js Streams Are 100× Slower Than They Should Be | James Snell, Cloudflare

Web Streams API promised one streaming model for every runtime. It delivered — along with memory leaks, hidden buffers, and performance so bad that Next.js quietly creates 250 objects to move a single chunk of data 🤯
One Next.js request: 250 ReadableStream objects created and thrown away just to move a single chunk of data through the pipeline.
👉 James Snell (Cloudflare) decided we deserve better. Here's what he built.

👤 James Snell — Principal Engineer at Cloudflare Workers Runtime, Node.js TSC member and core contributor. Built HTTP/2, WHATWG URL, and QUIC in Node.js. Author of JavaScript In Depth (Manning).
👉 Connect with James:
🔗 https://github.com/jasnell

✍️ This talk was part of Node Congress 2026:
We Deserve a Better Streams API for the Web | James Snell
🔗 https://nodecongress.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=JamesSnell

What's inside:
✅ Every read, every write — a hidden promise. Why this kills your performance
✅ Real production fires: React SSR deadlocks, AWS SDK meltdowns, Node Fetch eating your connection pool
✅ tee() buffers grow forever — and the spec designed it that way
✅ The replacement: just iterators. No classes, no locks, no overhead
✅ Backpressure that can't be ignored — and tee() done right
✅ 22–125× faster. Every major runtime. Benchmarks included

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🕐 Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:43 - Web Streams: an order of magnitude slower. Why it matters
01:07 - Your 20% Off 🤫
03:00 - Five problems with the API: boilerplate, locks, hidden buffers, promises, chaos
05:27 - tee() will eat your heap — and the spec designed it that way
08:58 - Real bugs: Next.js, AWS SDK, Node Fetch, React SSR
13:21 - The new design: streams are just iterators
16:19 - Backpressure that actually bites + full API walkthrough
22:56 - Benchmarks: up to 125× faster across every runtime
26:35 - Summary + how to get started
30:33 - Q&A

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💫 JSNation 2026 June 11 & 15, 2026 (Amsterdam)
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