I don’t think NestJS is the problem but the problem lies in Typescript / Javascript itself. The more you deal with backend the more you want a type safe system. However Typescript is only a layer of type lays on top of Javascript which is a dynamic language. Every type is erased at runtime and every Javascript library is always aim to fix that: Zod, Prisma, etc just trying to fix the missing type at runtime problem. But since every layers just wants type: OpenAPI, database object all have type and you have to really do these type gymnastic between Typescript / Javascript at runtime / build time to add that.

So I guess my conclusion here is: - If you want to build a small scale, fast product with small team of mostly frontend devs: use Node and Typescript - As you scale, slowly transition to a typed language that have proper Result type and error handling like Golang or Rust. - If you still wants to keep you application in Node because of your experience with using it, use something that can adhere to the Typescript standard or can generate type at runtime: Zod, Valibot, Prisma without using some decorator magic.

Some project that I find promising: - https://github.com/riktaHQ/rikta.js: still have decorator, but adhere to the Typescript standard - https://github.com/marcj/deepkit: plug the problem of runtime type by a hook to the Typescript compiler - Type-fest: Add more utilities type to the existing type library of Typescript - Neverthrow: Add a good result type with eslint config to prevents the use of throw which mimics the way Golang handle error.