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Node.js

Run JavaScript Everywhere

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Node.js is a free, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment for building servers, web apps, command line tools and scripts. As an asynchronous, event-driven runtime, it is designed for scalable network applications: an event loop handles connections concurrently, and most standard library functions avoid blocking I/O, so the process does not block except when synchronous methods are used.

Core capabilities include an HTTP server API with streaming and low latency, a built-in test runner and assertion module, file hashing via crypto, streams pipelines with compression, and worker threads for parallel work. Child processes and the cluster module allow use of multiple cores and socket sharing for load balancing. The runtime supports both CommonJS and ES modules, and official npm package scopes and GitHub organizations are maintained for the project.

Node.js is aimed at developers writing JavaScript for servers, web applications and command line tooling. It is distributed as free, open-source software with official binaries and documentation available from the project's official domains; security support is offered for end-of-life Node.js versions.

12 alternatives to Node.js

Ranked by how well each tool replaces Node.js: shared features, audience, price and popularity.

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