Building APIs with Cloudflare Workers and Hono
Most of my projects need a backend — not a heavy monolith, just a simple and fast API.
For chacla.pe, I decided to use Cloudflare Workers together with Hono, a small but powerful web framework.
Why Cloudflare Workers?
Cloudflare Workers run code at the edge, close to the user.
That means:
- No traditional servers to manage.
- Scales automatically.
- Pay only for what you use.
For APIs, this is ideal: fast responses, simple deployments, and global reach.
Where Hono fits
Writing APIs directly with the Workers API can feel low-level.
Hono makes it cleaner:
- Define routes like in Express (
app.get("/users", ...)). - Middleware support (auth, logging, etc.).
- Easy to keep code modular and organized.
In practice, it feels like a modern replacement for Express, but optimized for edge environments.
Where Supabase comes in
Workers and Hono give me the API layer, but I still need a reliable database and authentication system.
That’s where Supabase fits perfectly:
- Managed Postgres with a familiar SQL layer.
- Built-in auth and role-based policies.
- Easy integration with external clients through REST and GraphQL.
In my API, Workers handle the requests, and Supabase takes care of data and user management.
This way, I keep the backend simple but still powerful.
My setup for chacla.pe
For my API I used:
- Cloudflare Workers as the runtime.
- Hono to organize routes (
/business,/categories,/auth, etc.). - Supabase as the database + authentication provider.
The result: a lightweight API where each request runs at the edge and connects securely to Supabase.
Takeaways
- Workers + Hono is a great match for small to medium APIs.
- Supabase complements them by providing database, auth, and storage.
- The developer experience is familiar (similar to Express) but with edge-native benefits.
What I liked the most is the simplicity: push to GitHub, let Cloudflare deploy, and the API is live globally within seconds.