🚀 Meet Monpress: A Modern Framework Built on Top of Express.js

Sourav — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 10:40:44 +0000

We all love Express.js for its simplicity and flexibility — but let’s face it, it's starting to feel... a bit manual. If you’ve ever wanted the developer experience of Next.js but with the power of Express, you're going to love this.

Introducing Monpress — a modern, lightweight framework for building APIs using Express.js and TypeScript.

Monpress keeps the raw power of Express, but brings in modern conventions like:

✅ File-based routing

✅ RESTful method exports

✅ Optional & dynamic route parameters

✅ Global middleware support

✅ Built-in CLI for scaffolding and development

⚡ Why Monpress Is More Than Just a CLI

This isn’t just a helper script — Monpress is a full framework designed for backend developers who want speed and structure.

Think of it as:

The Next.js of Express
A faster way to build APIs without boilerplate
An expressive and scalable structure for real-world backends

🧱 Opinionated, but Flexible

Monpress gives you structure, but doesn't lock you in. Want to plug in a database, auth provider, or custom middleware? Go for it. You still have full access to the underlying Express app.

🔧 Core Concepts

1. 📁 File-Based Routing

Your folder = your API.

routes/
├── index.ts      → GET /
├── blog.ts       → GET /blog
├── blog/[id].ts  → GET /blog/:id

Want to make a route optional? Just add an underscore:

routes/user/[id_].ts → /user/:id?

2. 🧩 REST Method Exports

Instead of juggling app.get() and router.post(), just export methods like this:

// routes/hello.ts
import { httpRequest } from "monpress";

export const GET = httpRequest((req, res) => {
  res.json({ message: "Hello from GET" });
});

export const POST = httpRequest((req, res) => {
  res.json({ message: "Posted!" });
});

3. 🔐 Global Middleware

Need auth, CORS, or logging across your app?

// middlewares/logger.ts
import { middleware } from "monpress";

export const logger = middleware((req, _res, next) => {
  console.log(`[${req.method}] ${req.path}`);
  next();
});

import { MonPress } from "monpress";
import routes from "./routes";

const mon = MonPress({
  routes,
  middleware: [logger],
});

🚀 Quickstart

npm install -g monpress

monpress create
cd my-project
monpress dev

Then drop a file in routes/ and start building!

💡 Why Monpress?

Feature	Monpress
Framework	✅
Express under the hood	✅
File-based routing	✅
RESTful method exports	✅
Global middleware	✅
Dev CLI	✅
TypeScript-first	✅

If you're building modern APIs, Monpress gives you speed, structure, and simplicity — all powered by the Express engine you already know and love.

📦 Try It Now

npm install -g monpress

👉 Check it out on npm

🙌 Join the Journey

I built Monpress to simplify backend development and bring modern DX to Express. I’d love your feedback, ideas, or contributions.

Let’s build something awesome — together.

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/souravbapari1/mon

monpress #nodejs #express #typescript #webdev #framework #api #backend #opensource #devtools

Forem: Sourav