saxen: Super Fast SAX XML Parser

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library 11.0.2 ·javascript
verified May 27, 2026

Saxen is a minimalistic, high-performance SAX-style XML parser designed for JavaScript environments, primarily Node.js. It distinguishes itself by being extremely lightweight (around 2.6KB minified + gzipped) and fast, while offering essential features like optional namespace awareness and entity decoding. The current stable version is 11.0.2, with major versions introducing significant breaking changes, such as the transition to an ESM-only distribution in v11 and stricter Node.js version requirements. Its design prioritizes speed and small footprint, making it suitable for applications where parsing efficiency is critical, and a full DOM parser is unnecessary. Saxen provides a stream of events (`openTag`, `closeTag`, `text`, `error`, etc.) that developers can hook into to process XML data incrementally, and supports an optional "proxy mode" for richer element state at a minor performance cost. Unlike some other parsers, it explicitly eschews certain features to maintain its focus on core SAX parsing.

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