For several years now, the Node.js ecosystem has been steadily shifting towards ES modules (ESM) as the preferred method for sharing and utilizing JavaScript code. While CommonJS has served the community well, ESM are rapidly gaining traction as they offer a standardized approach for creating JavaScript modules across all supported runtimes.

The year is 2024 (yet), and Node.js has reached version 23, with two semver-majors released per year it might be difficult to keep track of all areas of Node.js. This article revisits the State of Node.js performance, with a focus on comparing versions 20 through 22. The goal is to provide a detailed analysis of how the platform has evolved over the past year. This is a second version of "The State of Node.js Performance" series.

Optimizing Node.js applications often involves sifting through complex performance data, trying to uncover hidden inefficiencies or bottlenecks. With N|Solid’s AI-powered profiling tools, you gain more than just data—you get actionable recommendations to diagnose and resolve issues with precision and speed. By leveraging predefined prompts and AI-powered analysis, the copilot not only highlights bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or anomalies but also provides clear guidance on how to address them.

We’re thrilled to announce an exciting new release of N|Solid, bringing powerful updates designed to enhance Node.js performance and scalability. This release introduces two major features: These updates mark important advancements for Node.js developers and operations teams. The gRPC transition ensures a solid foundation for scaling and future-proofing your applications, while the AI-powered profiling tools empower you to fine-tune your performance with increased precision.

At NodeSource, we are always striving to enhance the resilience, scalability, and openness of our tooling. Recently, we took a significant step forward by adopting gRPC in N|Solid —a widely used open-source protocol for efficient communication between systems. This move represents a major shift in how we transmit data internally while ensuring seamless continuity for our users.

Releasing a beta version of a Node.js package is a common practice when you want to share a new feature or a breaking change with testers or early adopters without affecting your stable users. Beta releases are tagged with a special version identifier (like 1.0.0-beta.0), making it clear that the version is pre-release and not production-ready. In this guide, we will cover the steps to release a beta version of your package using npm, ensuring a smooth and controlled release process.

At NodeSource, we pride ourselves on delivering the best tools and open source support for Node.js users. Staying aligned with the latest releases is a key part of that commitment. With the latest Long-Term Support (LTS) release, Node.js 22 (codenamed "Jod"), we continue to ensure our users have access to reliable, secure, and up-to-date **Node.js binaries **through our NodeSource Binary Distributions.

Unit tests are essential for increasing the test coverage of a backend application, ensuring its reliability, functionality, and robustness. Jest has become one of the most popular solutions when unit testing in Node, due to its intuitive API, zero-configuration philosophy, and flexible approach to code transpilation. In this guide, you will learn more about Jest, explore its features, and see it in action through a complete example. Become a Jest unit testing expert!

When running tests, it's a great feeling to see dozens of green check marks indicating that a test suite is passing. It's especially gratifying after tackling a tricky bug or slogging through a tough feature. But those passing tests may be giving you a false sense of security. Often, bugs lurk in passing tests, undermining trust in the test suite and your application. Such tests can cause more harm than good, giving you a hearty pat on the back while hiding broken functionality.

Node.js is a powerful runtime environment that allows you to handle asynchronous I/O operations efficiently using its event-driven architecture. Asynchronous operations in Node.js rely heavily on the event loop, and understanding how certain functions like process.nextTick() and setImmediate() interact with the event loop is essential for building fast, responsive applications.