VoidZero Announces Oxfmt Alpha: A Rust-Powered Prettier Alternative with 30x Performance Gains

VoidZero has announced the alpha release of Oxfmt, a Rust-based code formatter designed to address performance limitations in the JavaScript ecosystem's tooling stack. The formatter, which is part of VoidZero's broader Oxc toolchain initiative, delivers formatting speeds more than 30 times faster than Prettier while maintaining over 95% compatibility with Prettier's output.

The motivation behind Oxfmt stems from user feedback following the release of Oxlint earlier in 2025. Developers consistently requested styling features like import sorting, prompting VoidZero to build a complementary formatter. The team maintains a clear separation of concerns: linters check for logic while formatters focus on code style. By building both Oxfmt and Oxlint, they aim to reduce configuration overhead and eliminate the need to disable overlapping rules between tools.

Performance Benchmarks and Architecture

Performance benchmarks show Oxfmt is approximately 3 times faster than Biome and 30 times faster than Prettier on initial runs without cache, according to the project's official benchmarks. The formatter is built on the Oxc compiler stack and avoids architectural bottlenecks common in existing formatter implementations, making it particularly suited for large codebases and CI environments.

When questioned about the performance advantage over Biome (which is also Rust-based), community members pointed to architectural differences and "a bit of obsession over performance" in Oxfmt's design. The tool builds on a fork of the biome_formatter infrastructure, with VoidZero acknowledging the contributions of the Biome and Rome teams in their announcement.

Prettier Compatibility and Migration Path

Oxfmt is designed as a drop-in replacement for existing Prettier installations, allowing developers to migrate with minimal formatting differences. Migrating from Prettier to Oxfmt is straightforward for most projects: developers can rename their existing .prettierrc configuration file and begin using Oxfmt immediately.

The tool currently supports major Prettier configuration options including singleQuote, printWidth, and several others, with a full list available in the documentation. While Oxfmt passes around 95% of Prettier's JavaScript and TypeScript tests, VoidZero has been actively contributing bug reports and pull requests to Prettier itself to reduce remaining differences.

Community Reception and Use Cases

Developer enthusiasm has been strong. Ryan Leichty, who responded to the announcement, noted: "We already switched to oxlint. Can't wait for oxfmt." The account behind the param state manager nuqs commented on the Tailwind CSS support within Oxfmt: "Instant win over Biome. Looking forward to replacing Prettier with oxfmt (and maybe try out oxlint in the process)."

The tool addresses specific pain points in large-scale JavaScript/TypeScript projects:

• CI Performance: Faster formatting reduces CI pipeline times, particularly beneficial for monorepos
• Developer Experience: Near-instant feedback during local development
• Configuration Management: Unified toolchain reduces the need to coordinate between separate linter and formatter configurations

Future Roadmap

For the upcoming beta release, VoidZero is working on stabilizing experimental options such as:

• Built-in import sorting
• Embedded language formatting for CSS-in-JS
• Plugin support for popular frameworks including Vue, Svelte, and Astro

Ecosystem Context

Oxfmt joins Biome and Prettier as code formatting options for JavaScript and TypeScript developers. While Prettier remains the de facto standard with widespread adoption, Biome has gained traction by offering both linting and formatting in a single tool. Oxfmt differentiates itself through its focus on Prettier compatibility combined with performance gains that exceed both alternatives.

The broader trend of Rust-based tooling in the JavaScript ecosystem continues to gain momentum. Tools like SWC, esbuild, and now Oxfmt demonstrate how Rust's performance characteristics can address long-standing performance bottlenecks in JavaScript tooling.

Getting Started

Developers can report issues and provide feedback through the project's GitHub discussions or join the community Discord server. The alpha release is available for testing, with the team actively seeking feedback on compatibility and performance in real-world scenarios.

As the JavaScript ecosystem continues to evolve, tools like Oxfmt represent a pragmatic approach to improving developer experience without sacrificing compatibility with established workflows. The alpha release marks the beginning of what could become a significant alternative in the code formatting landscape, particularly for teams prioritizing performance in large-scale applications.