Choosing a language
All five targets produce the same kind of artifact (a Hive Bytecode .hbc) and run on the same nodes. They
differ in size, gas per call and what they can be used for.
| Rust | Go (TinyGo) | TypeScript (AssemblyScript) | JavaScript / TypeScript (engine) | Python | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDK | hivekit-rs |
hivekit-go |
hivekit-js, .ts default |
hivekit-js, .js or --target js |
hivekit |
| Handler shape | #[hive_export] fn(T) -> R with serde types |
Define, DefineJSON, DefineRaw |
(input: string): string |
(input, ctx) => any (JSON in/out) |
@hive.define on fn(input) / fn(ctx) |
Typical module.wasm |
100–180 KB | 400–500 KB | a few KB | ~3.4 MB | ~9.6 MiB |
| Small call (measured) | ~10–20k gas | ~90–100k gas | ~12k gas | ~2.5 M gas | ~3.5–5 M gas |
| JSON | serde | encoding/json |
none built in (parse by hand) | native | json module |
| Third-party code | crates that compile to wasm32-unknown-unknown without WASI (e.g. k256, ed25519-dalek) |
pure-Go packages TinyGo supports (e.g. crypto/ed25519) |
single file, hivekit import only |
bundle into one source file | built-in deterministic modules only |
| Native unit tests | hivekit::testing mock host |
hivekit.Mock, InvokeLocal |
via hivec run |
hive.invoke in Node |
hive.invoke_local |
| Committee worker (mining project) | Yes (when it imports no storage / hive.call) |
Yes | Yes | No (runtime always imports storage) | No (runtime always imports storage) |
| Best for | Production workers, crypto, heavy compute | Teams that know Go | Tiny, cheap modules | Prototypes, app logic on validators | Prototypes, scripts on validators |
Recommendations
Section titled “Recommendations”- Mining project workers: Rust first (smallest gas for real work, best crypto libraries), then Go or AssemblyScript. Measured on the same ed25519 workload, Rust used 12.6 M gas and TinyGo 73.7 M; see DePIN & IoT telemetry.
- Stateful modules on validators (
/v1/execute): any language. JavaScript and Python cost a few million gas per call, which is fine for low-volume logic; always pass agas_limit. - Mixing languages: modules call each other by address regardless of language, so you can keep heavy code in Rust and glue in JavaScript. Composition