A real minimalist web framework for Node is Koa. Basically anything besides the bare minimum is a separate dependency, so you only install what you need.

That said, it probably means minimalist in a usage sense. Compared to things like Nest.js (which I love, don't get me wrong), express is a lot more straightforward and basic.

Koa is better but still has 43 dependencies...

23 according to npm, with a size of 83kb. Sounds pretty minimal to me.

NPM only counts direct dependencies, so the reality is almost always higher.

I think the author wants to say that it’s like at the opposite of frameworks like Adonisjs, Sailsjs or Rails.