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Node.js 24 is the latest Long-Term Support release, and Node.js 26 is the Current release line. Node.js 18 and Node.js 20, meanwhile, have both reached End-of-Life (EOL). That should make the direction of travel obvious. Instead, Matteo Collina’s analysis of Node.js download data showed that even discontinued Node.js 12, 14, and 16 release lines were still generating tens of millions of downloads per month, highlighting how slowly the ecosystem moves away from unsupported versions.

For years, the Node.js community has typed the same command billions of times: It's probably the most frequently executed command in the JavaScript ecosystem. We use it to start new projects, add dependencies, update existing ones, or simply bootstrap a development environment. It has become such a routine part of our workflow that most of us no longer stop to think about what actually happens during those few seconds while npm fills node_modules.