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With effective and robust web designs gaining notable importance in this digital era, node.js stands out to be the optimal choice for developing responsive web designs. People who build websites really like using Node.js because it helps them make apps that show real-time information and handle a lot of data. It is one of the most efficient Javascript runtime environments, with support for REST APIs, desktop and mobile apps.
Imagine a world where a single technology transforms the way we create web applications. That’s Node.js — my fascination stems from its magical ability to use JavaScript for both client and server sides.
What’s even more fascinating? Its collection of open-source modules available via npm is like a treasure trove and how Node.js enables the responsive applications that effortlessly manage multiple tasks simultaneously by easily handling numerous connections. These modules are like building blocks, simplifying development and unleashing creativity.
In my article, I’ll guide you through Node 18 and its features.
Before diving deep into Node 18, let’s recap about Node and why we use it. Node is built on V8 JavaScript engine which is used in Google Chrome and other browsers. It is written in C++ and can run on any platform like MacOS, Linux, Windows and others. The V8 engine internally compiles JavaScript code using Just-In-Time (JIT) to speed up the execution.
Sometimes, Node is referred to as a programming language or software development framework, but neither is true. It is strictly a JavaScript runtime. Node is event-driven and runs asynchronously.
Node.js 18 was released on April 19, 2022 and is the latest Active long-term support (LTS) version of Node.
Node major release is updated every six months. The new release becomes the current release for six months, which gives library authors time to add support for them. After six months, the odd-numbered releases (like 11, 13, 15 etc.) will become unsupported and the even-numbered releases (12, 14, 16, 18 etc.) moves to active LTS status and are ready to use in applications. LTS means it guarantees that the previous critical bugs are fixed for a total of 30 months. Production applications should only use Active LTS or Maintenance LTS releases.
Many of you have wondered why Hydrogen comes here and how is it related to Node.
Let me explain this, the codename for Node 18 release is ‘Hydrogen’. The name ‘Hydrogen’ comes from the periodic table and they have been used it in the alphabetical order. The names of the previous LTS versions Gallium (v16), Fermium (v14), Erbium (v12) … also comes from the same table.
You can refer the full list of codenames for previous releases here.
The previous Active LTS of Node was Node 16. Node 16 is currently in Maintenance state and likely to end the support from Oct 2023. Hence it is now recommended to migrate the Node version to 18 (which is currently the Active LTS) in the Production applications. Support for Node.js 18 will last until April 2025.
The Active LTS majorly focuses on stability and being a more reliable application after allowing a reasonable time to receive feedback from the community and testing its implementation at any scale.
You can find the Active, Maintenance and Unstable LTS versions of Node below:
You can also find the status, release dates, Active LTS, Maintenance state and the end-of-life in the below image:
You can also find the previous Node releases here: https://nodejs.org/en/download/releases
Apart from release timelines, Node 18 comes along with their potential benefits and use cases.
Improved Performance and Stability: One of the major highlights of Node.js 18 is its improved performance and stability. With the introduction of V8 9.5, the JavaScript engine used in Node.js, developers can expect significant performance improvements in terms of both speed and memory utilization.
Enhanced Security Features: Security is a top priority in any application, and Node.js 18 introduces several enhancements to strengthen application security. One of the security enhancements in Node.js 18 is the introduction of “FIPS mode”. FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) is a set of security standards defined by the US government.
Improved Diagnostics and Debugging Capabilities: Developers often rely on diagnostics and debugging tools to identify and fix issues in their applications. One notable addition is the introduction of diagnostic report enhancements. Node.js 18 now provides more insights into application performance and memory usage through diagnostic reports. Developers can use these reports to identify performance bottlenecks, memory leaks, and other issues, allowing for more effective optimization and troubleshooting.
Now, there are plenty of issues with running older versions of Nodejs that you have to be aware of.
- You don’t get security updates.
- You don’t get updates to adapt to OS changes.
- You don’t get bug fixes.
- The current versions of NPM modules you are using may no longer support your specific Nodejs version or a more modern OS version. You can, of course, continue to run older versions of modules too, if desired to maintain compatibility with your older version of Nodejs, but those older modules will have the same possible issues mentioned here as an older version of Nodejs.
To me, the biggest risk with holding on to an older version of Nodejs is that at some point a serious security risk will be found and you will HAVE to do something about it. With no official support for that security fix in an older version of Nodejs, you will have to either manually fix the security vulnerability yourself in your current version of Nodejs, change your code in some way to protect against it or upgrade to a newer version of Nodejs that contains the desired security fix. The longer you wait to do this, the more potential issues you may find in bringing your software up-to-date.
It is always recommended to continually move your software forward with supported versions of Nodejs. You don’t have to do it frequently and you don’t have to run on the latest/greatest version, but there are significant benefits to always running an LTS version.
You can simply know it by executing the below commands in your console:
$ node — version
Run the following to retrieve the name of the LTS release you are using:
$ node -p process.release.lts
Note: The previous property only exists if the release is an LTS. Otherwise, it returns nothing.
The Node.js contributors are continuously working to improve the runtime, introduce more features, and improve developer experience and usability. Today as the worldwide community uses JS for developing API-driven web applications and serverless cloud development, the changes in this new LTS version are important to understand.
Node 18 comes with the following major features:
Feature 1: Native Fetch API in Node.js 18
The fetch API starts the process of fetching a resource from the network, returning a promise which is fulfilled once the response is available. Following is the syntax for the same:
function fetch(input: RequestInfo, init?: RequestInit): Promise<Response>
— input: is a URL string or a Request object.
— init: is an optional parameter, which is an object containing the custom settings
Here is an example, fetchExample.js:
At line 2, fetch is called upon https://nodejs.org/api/documentation.json, which gets node documentation.
fetch only rejects when a network error is encountered. It does not reject on HTTP errors. Therefore, the response needs to check response.ok to know whether the fetch is successful or not. If it fails, response.status and response.statusText provide more information (line 7).
Feature 2: — watch
Using — watch, your application will automatically restart when an imported file is changed. Just like nodemon. And you can use — watch-path to specify which path should be observed.
Also, these flags cannot be combined with — check, — eval, — interactive, or when used in REPL (read–eval–print loop) mode. It just won’t work.
You can now use Node Watch index on your file name to start watching your files without having to install anything.
Feature 3: V8 Version 10.1
Node.js runs with the V8 engine from the Chromium open-source browser. This engine has been upgraded to version 10.1, which is part of the recent update in Chromium 101. There are several new features in V8 10.1. Besides the improved performance of class fields and private class methods, there are the following three new features:
- The findLast and findLastIndex array methods
- Improvements to the Locale API
- The supportedValuesOf function
The findLast and findLastIndex array methods:
Array has methods to find an element that satisfies some condition. In addition to the existing methods to find an element or index from the beginning, findLast and findLastIndex are added to find an element or index from the end.
Improvements to the Intl.Locale API:
For the Intl.Locale API, seven new properties are added to the object: calendars, collations, hourCycles, numberingSystems, timeZones, textInfo, and weekInfo.
The Intl.supportedValuesOf function:
A new function, Intl.supportedValuesOf(code), is added to return the array of supported identifiers in V8 for the Intl APIs. The code parameter can be calendar, collation, currency,numberingSystem, timeZone, or unit.
Feature 4: HTTP Timeouts
server.headersTimeout limits the amount of time in milliseconds the parser will wait to receive the complete HTTP headers from the client.
server.requestTimeout sets the timeout value in milliseconds for receiving the entire request from the client.
If these timeouts expire, the server responds with status 408 without forwarding the request to the request listener and then closes the connection.
For node.js 17, server.headersTimeout is set to 60000 (1 minute) by default, and server.requestTimeout is set to 0 by default. Whereas, for node.js 18, server.headersTimeout is still 60000 (1 minute) by default, and server.requestTimeout is set to 300000 (5 minutes) by default.
From node.js 18, both timeouts must be set to a non-zero value to protect against potential Denial-of-Service attacks in case the server is deployed without a reverse proxy in front.
The project undoubtedly has some great challenges soon to continue growing and maintaining its leading position in the ecosystem. These are some of the upcoming features. Most of them are experimental; without being the only ones to discuss, there is much work and proposals from an active community such as the Node.js Community.
- Default DNS resolution
- ECMAScript modules improvements
- Improved support for AbortController and AbortSignal
- Updated Platform Support
- Async Hooks
- Direct Network Imports
- Build-time user-land snapshot
- Support for JSON Import Assertions
- Unflagging of JSON modules (experimental)
- Support for HTTPS and HTTP imports
- Diagnostic Channel
- Trace Events
- WASI
You can check the full changelog here.
You need to ensure that the dependency packages in your application should be compatible with the Node 18 version. First, remove all unused dependencies. You can use a package like depcheck or you could do it manually.
If you are going to upgrade packages incompatible with a new Node.js version only, it is ideal case.
- In package.json, Change node version in engines sections. It will stop installation with wrong Node.js version.
- Update Node.js version any appropriate way. I use nvm: nvm install 18.17.1 and nvm alias default 18.17.1. You can reinstall global packages with — reinstall-packages-from=<old-node-version>. Read more about nvm.
- Try to install dependencies.
- Fix all errors step-by-step. Decide if you want to upgrade to the latest package version or not on your own. Usually, there are release notes, you get exact version the most suitable and not broken. It is fine to go on with not the latest version always.
Update vulnerable dependencies — use npm audit or yarn audit to find vulnerable packages. It is strongly recommended.
Following are the examples of a few dependencies to take care:
- appdynamics
- babel
- joi
- hapi
- husky
- typescript
- webpack
- ts-node
- mongodb
The above are the few dependencies which are common in many of the Node or Typescript projects. There might be many other dependencies which are project specific and you may need to update them such that they’re compatible with the Node version.
Node v20 is not the Active LTS of Node and there are a lot of fixes been performed and many fixes are yet to come and authors are working hard to fix them to make it a stable version. As the current stable version and the Active LTS is Node 18, we need to upgrade the Node version in our application to Node 18 and not Node 20.
If we upgrade the version to Node 20 instead of Node 18 then there might be some abnormal behaviours might encounter while running your applications and we might need to wait until the authors fix it and release the patch version of it. So, in order to be in a safe side we always upgrade to a stable version and an Active LTS (which is Node 18).
Thank you for reading, appreciate your time and interest! Hope it is useful.
Your feedback is valuable — feel free to share!
