Koa
Small, expressive web framework for Node.js from the Express team.
HTTP servers and APIs npm MIT
How Koa is used
Koa joined the catalog on its public numbers (4,181,232 downloads a week on npm and 35,680 GitHub stars), not on our project count: it is a dependency in 8 public GitHub projects of our scan, 1 of them set up for AI coding agents. The most used alternative in our scan is Express (421 projects). Projects that use it most often also use nodemon (62.5%), dotenv (62.5%), Axios (50.0%).
Koa popularity over time
Gid Score 57: downloads 77, use in agent projects 14, GitHub stars 71, downloads trend 55 (each 0-100). How it is calculated.
Often used with Koa
| nodemon | 62.5% of Koa projects · 41.3× more than average |
|---|---|
| dotenv | 62.5% of Koa projects · 4.0× more than average |
| Axios | 50.0% of Koa projects · 6.6× more than average |
| esbuild | 37.5% of Koa projects · 8.0× more than average |
| ts-node | 37.5% of Koa projects · 7.9× more than average |
| Babel (JavaScript) | 37.5% of Koa projects · 10.1× more than average |
| Jest | 37.5% of Koa projects · 5.9× more than average |
| SuperTest | 37.5% of Koa projects · 23.0× more than average |
How Koa is funded
Open Collective: KoaJS
| Received, last 12 months | $98 Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 |
|---|---|
| Estimated annual budget | $150 Open Collective's estimate |
| Balance | $3,158 |
| Raised since the start | $3,158 |
| Typical month median, last 12 months | $8 · $11 over 24 months |
| Last 12 months vs the 12 before | -31% |
| Contributors, last 12 months | 8 |
Top company backers all time, 16 companies in total
| G2i Inc | $300 since Nov 2019 |
|---|---|
| 多会 | $100 since Apr 2018 |
| Qiwu.ai | $100 since Aug 2019 |
| Underdogz Studio | $90 since Feb 2019 |
| bmqb | $70 since May 2018 |
Oct 2021Sep 2026
Money by month, last five years. First money received in Jun 2016. The typical month is the median: one big one-off donation does not move it.
USD after payment processor fees, as Open Collective reports it; fiscal host Open Source Collective. Source
Ways to fund Koa
Open Collective
As the maintainers list them in FUNDING.yml on GitHub. Checked Oct 20, 2026.
Install
| Package | npm install koa |
|---|---|
| Main stacks | TypeScript / JavaScript (8) |
| Example projects | EKKOLearnAI/ekko-studio, cofacts/rumors-line-bot, zhuanggenhua/BoardGame, bcnmy/userop-debugger-backend, PPAV-inc/telegram-bot |
Alternatives to Koa
Tools that do the same job, so a project picks one or the other. Add-ons and libraries used alongside Koa are not listed here; they are in "Often used with".
| Tool | Gid Score | Used in agent projects | Downloads / wk | GitHub stars | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express npm Fast, unopinionated minimalist web framework for Node.js. |
87 | 421 (8.7%) | 87.4M | 69.6K | MIT |
| Hono npm Ultrafast web framework for edge runtimes built on Web Standards. |
78 | 107 (2.2%) | 45.2M | 32.6K | MIT |
More in HTTP servers and APIs: Uvicorn FastAPI cors python-multipart Flask Starlette express-rate-limit multer