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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Node.js

Original author(s) Ryan Dahl

Developer(s) OpenJS Foundation
Initial release May 27, 2009; 15 years ago[1]
Stable release
23.11.0[2] Edit this on Wikidata / April 1, 2025; 8 days ago
Repository
github.com/nodejs/node Edit this at Wikidata
Written in JavaScript, C++, Python, C
Operating system z/OS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, SmartOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD,
IBM AIX[3]
Type Runtime environment
License MIT License[4][5]
Website nodejs.org
Node.js is a cross-platform, open-source JavaScript runtime environment that can
run on Windows, Linux, Unix, macOS, and more. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript
engine, and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.

Node.js lets developers use JavaScript to write command line tools and for server-
side scripting. The ability to run JavaScript code on the server is often used to
generate dynamic web page content before the page is sent to the user's web
browser. Consequently, Node.js represents a "JavaScript everywhere" paradigm,[6]
unifying web-application development around a single programming language, as
opposed to using different languages for the server- versus client-side
programming.

Node.js has an event-driven architecture capable of asynchronous I/O. These design

choices aim to optimize throughput and scalability in web applications with many
input/output operations, as well as for real-time Web applications (e.g., real-time
communication programs and browser games).[7]

The Node.js distributed development project was previously governed by the Node.js
Foundation,[8] and has now merged with the JS Foundation to form the OpenJS
Foundation. OpenJS Foundation is facilitated by the Linux Foundation's
Collaborative Projects program.[9]

History

Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, in 2010

Rocket Turtle, the official mascot of Node.js since February 2024

Node.js was initially written by Ryan Dahl in 2009,[10] about 13 years after the
introduction of the first server-side JavaScript environment, Netscape's LiveWire
Pro Web.[11] The initial release supported only Linux and Mac OS X. Its development
and maintenance was led by Dahl and later sponsored by Joyent.[12]

Dahl criticized the limited capability of Apache HTTP Server to handle many
(10,000+) concurrent connections, as well as the dominant programming paradigm of
sequential programming, in which applications could block entire processes or cause
the creation of multiple execution stacks for simultaneous connections.[13]

Dahl demonstrated the project at the inaugural European JSConf on November 8, 2009.
[14][15][16] Node.js combined Google's V8 JavaScript engine, an event loop, and a
low-level I/O API.[17]
In January 2010, a package manager was introduced for the Node.js environment
called npm.[18] The package manager allows programmers to publish and share Node.js
packages, along with the accompanying source code, and is designed to simplify the
installation, update and uninstallation of packages.[17]

In June 2011, Microsoft and Joyent implemented a native Windows version of Node.js.
[19] The first Node.js build supporting Windows was released in July 2011.

In January 2012, Dahl yielded management of the project to npm creator Isaac
Schlueter.[20] In January 2014, Schlueter announced that Timothy J. Fontaine would
lead the project.[21]

In December 2014, Fedor Indutny created io.js, a fork of Node.js created because of
dissatisfaction with Joyent's governance as an open-governance alternative with a
separate technical committee. The goal was to enable a structure that would be more
receptive to community input, including the updating of io.js with the latest
Google V8 JavaScript engine releases, diverging from Node.js's approach at that
time.[22]

The Node.js Foundation, formed to reconcile Node.js and io.js under a unified
banner, was announced in February 2015.[23] The merger was realized in September
2015 with Node.js v0.12 and io.js v3.3 combining into Node v4.0.[24] This merge
brought V8 ES6 features into Node.js and started a long-term support release cycle.
[25] By 2016, the io.js website recommended returning to Node.js and announced no
further io.js releases, effectively ending the fork and solidifying the merger's
success.[26]

In 2019, the JS Foundation and Node.js Foundation merged to form the OpenJS
Foundation.

Branding
The Node.js logo features a green hexagon with overlapping bands to represent the
cross-platform nature of the runtime.[27] The Rocket Turtle was chosen as the
official Node.js mascot in February 2024 following a design contest.[28]

Overview
Node.js allows the creation of web servers and networking tools using JavaScript
and a collection of "modules" that handle various core functionalities.[14][17][29]
[30][31] Modules are provided for file system I/O, networking (DNS, HTTP, TCP,
TLS/SSL or UDP), binary data (buffers), cryptography functions, data streams and
other core functions.[17][30][32] Node.js's modules use an API designed to reduce
the complexity of writing server applications.[17][30]

JavaScript is the only language that Node.js supports natively, but many compile-
to-JS languages are available.[33] As a result, Node.js applications can be written
in CoffeeScript,[34] Dart, TypeScript, ClojureScript and others.

Node.js is primarily used to build network programs such as web servers.[29] The
most significant difference between Node.js and PHP is that most functions in PHP
block until completion (commands execute only after previous commands finish),
while Node.js functions are non-blocking (commands execute concurrently and use
callbacks to signal completion or failure),[29] thus opening up new attack surfaces
that are inherently absent in most web server applications.

Node.js is officially supported by Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows 8.1 and
Server 2012 (and later),[3] with Tier 2 support for SmartOS and IBM AIX and
experimental support for FreeBSD. OpenBSD also works, and LTS versions are
available for IBM i (AS/400).[35] The source code may also be built on similar
operating systems that are not officially supported, such as NonStop OS[36] and
Unix servers.

Platform architecture
Node.js enables development of fast web servers in JavaScript using event-driven
programming.[17] Developers can create scalable servers without using threading by
using a simplified model that uses callbacks to signal the completion of a task.
[17][page needed] Node.js connects the ease of a scripting language (JavaScript)
with the power of Unix network programming.[17]

Node.js was built on top of Google's V8 JavaScript engine since it was open-sourced
under the BSD license, and it contains comprehensive support for fundamental
protocols such as HTTP, DNS and TCP.[14] JavaScript's existing popularity made
Node.js accessible to the web-development community.[14]

Industry support
There are thousands of open-source libraries for Node.js, most of which are hosted
on the npm website. Multiple developer conferences and events are held that support
the Node.js community, including NodeConf, Node Interactive, and Node Summit, as
well as a number of regional events.

The open-source community has developed web frameworks to accelerate the

development of applications. Such frameworks include Express.js, Socket.IO,
Sails.js, Next.js and Meteor.[17][37] Various packages have also been created for
interfacing with other languages or runtime environments such as Microsoft .NET.
[38]

Modern desktop IDEs provide editing and debugging features specifically for Node.js
applications. Such IDEs include Atom, Brackets, JetBrains WebStorm,[39][40]
Microsoft Visual Studio (with Node.js Tools for Visual Studio,[41] or TypeScript
with Node definitions[42][43][44][45]), NetBeans,[46] Nodeclipse Enide Studio[47]
(Eclipse-based) and Visual Studio Code.[48][49] Some online IDEs also support
Node.js, such as Codeanywhere, Eclipse Che, Cloud9 IDE and the visual flow editor
in Node-RED.

Node.js is supported across a number of cloud-hosting platforms such as Jelastic,

Google Cloud Platform, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Azure Web Apps and Joyent.

Releases
Release[50] Status Code name Release date Maintenance end
0.10.x End-of-Life 2013-03-11 2016-10-31
0.12.x End-of-Life 2015-02-06 2016-12-31
4.x End-of-Life Argon[51] 2015-09-08 2018-04-30
5.x End-of-Life 2015-10-29 2016-06-30
6.x End-of-Life Boron[51] 2016-04-26 2019-04-30
7.x End-of-Life 2016-10-25 2017-06-30
8.x End-of-Life Carbon[51] 2017-05-30 2019-12-31
9.x End-of-Life 2017-10-01 2018-06-30
10.x End-of-Life Dubnium[51] 2018-04-24 2021-04-30
11.x End-of-Life 2018-10-23 2019-06-01
12.x End-of-Life Erbium[51] 2019-04-23 2022-04-30
13.x End-of-Life 2019-10-22 2020-06-01
14.x End-of-Life Fermium[51] 2020-04-21 2023-04-30
15.x End-of-Life 2020-10-20 2021-06-01
16.x End-of-Life Gallium[51] 2021-04-20 2023-09-11[52]
17.x End-of-Life 2021-10-19 2022-06-01
18.x Maintenance LTS Hydrogen[51] 2022-04-19 2025-04-30
19.x End-of-Life 2022-10-18 2023-06-01
20.x Maintenance LTS Iron[53] 2023-04-18 2026-04-30
21.x End-of-Life [51] 2023-10-17 2024-06-01
22.x Active LTS Jod [53][51] 2024-04-24 2027-04-30
23.x Current [51] 2024-10-15 2025-06-01
24.x Planned Krypton [53] 2025-04-22 2028-04-30
Legend:
Old version, not maintained
Old version, still maintained
Latest version
Future version
New major releases of Node.js are cut from the GitHub main branch every six months.
Even-numbered versions are cut in April and odd-numbered versions are cut in
October. When a new odd version is released, the previous even version undergoes
transition to Long Term Support (LTS), which gives that version 12 months of active
support from the date it is designated LTS. After these 12 months expire, an LTS
release receives an additional 18 months of maintenance support. An active version
receives non-breaking backports of changes a few weeks after they land in the
current release. A maintenance release receives only critical fixes and
documentation updates.[51] The LTS Working Group manages strategy and policy in
collaboration with the Technical Steering Committee of the Node.js Foundation.

Technical details
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that processes incoming requests in a
loop, called the event loop.

Internals
Node.js uses libuv under the hood to handle asynchronous events. Libuv is an
abstraction layer for network and file system functionality on both Windows and
POSIX-based systems such as Linux, macOS, OSS on NonStop, and Unix. Node.js relies
on nghttp2 for HTTP support. As of version 20, Node.js uses the ada library which
provides up-to-date WHATWG URL compliance. As of version 19.5, Node.js uses the
simdutf library for fast Unicode validation and transcoding. As of version 21.3,
Node.js uses the simdjson library for fast JSON parsing.

Threading
Node.js operates on a single-thread event loop, using non-blocking I/O calls,
allowing it to support tens of thousands of concurrent connections without
incurring the cost of thread context switching.[54] The design of sharing a single
thread among all the requests that use the observer pattern is intended for
building highly concurrent applications, where any function performing I/O must use
a callback. To accommodate the single-threaded event loop, Node.js uses the libuv
library—which, in turn, uses a fixed-sized thread pool that handles some of the
non-blocking asynchronous I/O operations.[7]

A thread pool handles the execution of parallel tasks in Node.js. The main thread
function call posts tasks to the shared task queue, which threads in the thread
pool pull and execute. Inherently non-blocking system functions such as networking
translate to kernel-side non-blocking sockets, while inherently blocking system
functions such as file I/O run in a blocking way on their own threads. When a
thread in the thread pool completes a task, it informs the main thread of this,
which in turn, wakes up and executes the registered callback.

A downside of this single-threaded approach is that Node.js does not allow vertical
scaling by increasing the number of CPU cores of the machine it is running on
without using an additional module, such as cluster,[55] StrongLoop Process
Manager,[56] or pm2.[57] However, developers can increase the default number of
threads in the libuv thread pool. The server operating system (OS) is likely to
distribute these threads across multiple cores.[58] Another problem is that long-
lasting computations and other CPU-bound tasks freeze the entire event-loop until
completion.[citation needed]
V8
Main article: V8 (JavaScript engine)
V8 is the JavaScript execution engine which was initially built for Google Chrome.
It was then open-sourced by Google in 2008. Written in C++, V8 compiles JavaScript
source code to native machine code at runtime.[7] As of 2016, it also includes
Ignition, a bytecode interpreter.

Package management
npm is the pre-installed package manager for the Node.js server platform. It
installs Node.js programs from the npm registry, organizing the installation and
management of third-party Node.js programs.

Event loop
Node.js registers with the operating system so the OS notifies it of asynchronous
I/O events such as new connections. Within the Node.js runtime, events trigger
callbacks and each connection is handled as a small heap allocation. Traditionally,
relatively heavyweight OS processes or threads handled each connection. Node.js
uses an event loop for concurrent I/O, instead of processes or threads.[59] In
contrast to other event-driven servers,[which?] Node.js's event loop does not need
to be called explicitly. Instead, callbacks are defined, and the server
automatically enters the event loop at the end of the callback definition. Node.js
exits the event loop when there are no further callbacks to be performed.

WebAssembly
Node.js supports WebAssembly and as of Node 14 has experimental support of WASI,
the WebAssembly System Interface.

Native bindings
See also: Foreign function interface
Node.js provides a way to create "add-ons" via a C-based API called N-API, which
can be used to produce loadable (importable) .node modules from source code written
in C/C++.[60] The modules can be directly loaded into memory and executed from
within JS environment as simple CommonJS modules. The implementation of the N-API
relies on internal C/C++ Node.js and V8 objects requiring users to import
(#include) Node.js specific headers into their native source code.[60]

As the Node.js API is subject to breaking changes at a binary level, modules have
to be built and shipped against specific Node.js versions to work properly. To
address the issue, third parties have introduced open-sourced С/С++ wrappers on top
of the API that partially alleviate the problem. They simplify interfaces, but as a
side effect they may also introduce complexity which maintainers have to deal with.
Even though the core functionality of Node.js resides in a JavaScript built-in
library, modules written in C++ can be used to enhance capabilities and to improve
performance of applications.

In order to produce such modules one needs to have an appropriate C++ compiler and
necessary headers (the latter are typically shipped with Node.js itself), e.g.,
gcc, clang or MSVC++.

The N-API is similar to Java Native Interface.

Project governance
Main article: OpenJS Foundation
In 2015, various branches of the greater Node.js community began working under the
vendor-neutral Node.js Foundation. The stated purpose of the organization "is to
enable widespread adoption and help accelerate development of Node.js and other
related modules through an open governance model that encourages participation,
technical contribution, and a framework for long-term stewardship by an ecosystem
invested in Node.js' success."[61]
The Node.js Foundation Technical Steering Committee (TSC) is the technical
governing body of the Node.js Foundation. The TSC is responsible for the core
Node.js repo as well as dependent and adjacent projects. Generally the TSC
delegates the administration of these projects to working groups or committees.[62]
The LTS group that manages long term supported releases is one such group. Other
current groups include Website, Streams, Build, Diagnostics, i18n, Evangelism,
Docker, Addon API, Benchmarking, Post-mortem, Intl, Documentation, and Testing.[63]

In August 2017, a third of the TSC members resigned due to a dispute related to the
project's code of conduct.[64]

Current TSC Members[65]

Username Full Name
aduh95 Antoine du Hamel
anonrig Yagiz Nizipli
benjamingr Benjamin Gruenbaum
BridgeAR Ruben Bridgewater
gireeshpunathil Gireesh Punathil
jasnell James M Snell
joyeecheung Joyee Cheung
legendecas Chengzhong Wu
marco-ippolito Marco Ippolito
mcollina Matteo Collina
mhdawson Michael Dawson
RafaelGSS Rafael Gonzaga
richardlau Richard Lau
ronag Robert Nagy
ruyadorno Ruy Adorno
ShogunPanda Paolo Insogna
targos Michaël Zasso
tniessen Tobias Nießen
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"About Node.js, and why you should add Node.js to your skill set?". Training.com.
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Garbar, Dzmitry. "PHP 7 vs Node.js? They Can Be Partners, Not Competitors For a
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Retrieved 9 September 2009.
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Sons, 01-Oct-2012
"Earliest releases of npm". GitHub. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
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Dahl, Ryan. "New gatekeeper". Retrieved 26 October 2013.
Schlueter, Isaac (15 January 2014). "The Next Phase of Node.js". Retrieved 21
January 2014.
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"Node.js Foundation Advances Community Collaboration, Announces New Members and
Ratified Technical Governance". Archived from the original on 24 June 2015.
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"Node.js Foundation Combines Node.js and io.js Into Single Codebase in New
Release". nodejs.org. 14 September 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
"io.js and Node.js merge". medium.com. 19 May 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
Io.js, JavaScript I/O, "io.js has merged with the Node.js project again. There
won't be any further io.js releases. All of the features in io.js are available in
Node.js v4 and above."
"Brand Guide" (PDF). Node.js. OpenJS Foundation. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
"Node.JS on X: "Meet Rocket Turtle there are many ways 👋"". Retrieved 22 March
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Node.js for PHP Developers, O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2013
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Further reading
Hughes-Croucher, Tom; Wilson, Mike (April 2012), Up and Running with Node.js,
O'Reilly Media, ISBN 978-1-4493-9858-3
Ornbo, George (September 2012), Sams Teach Yourself Node.js in 24 Hours, SAMS
Publishing, ISBN 978-0-672-33595-2
Teixeira, Pedro (October 2012), Professional Node.js, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-
1-118-22754-1
Randal L. Schwartz and Aaron Newcomb (9 January 2013). "Episode 237: Node.js".
twit.tv/show/floss-weekly (Podcast). TWiT.tv. Event occurs at 1:08:13. Retrieved 9
January 2013.
Gackenheimer, Cory (October 2013), Node.js Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach,
Apress, ISBN 978-1-4302-6058-5
External links

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