Well this isn't really NodeJS, it's written in C++. The whole point of Node is that it is a wrapper around the V8 JS engine (the one used in Chrome) that allows

Well this isn't really NodeJS, it's written in C++. The whole point of Node is that it is a wrapper around the V8 JS engine (the one used in Chrome) that allows you to run JS specifically in a non-browser environment. This project is more an extension to Node (or as it is called in the GitHub README, a "web server bypass for Node.js). You do actually see the same kinda thing happening in other ecosystems, especially Python – something runs slower than you want it to (because Python), so you re-write it in Rust/C/C++ and hook into the extension system of the lang for a seamless DX. Off the top of my head things like `asyncpg`, `orson`, `uvloop` and esp relevant in this case `websockets` are all async libs that do this. Mildly tangential but as someone who has spent a lot of time making the Python backend for my startup run as fast as possible, I would recommend avoiding Python if performance is your primary concern.