Update to the latest version of Node 20: What’s New?

Node 20 was recently released on April 18, 2023, with many advanced features and updates. The release has created a lot of curiosity about what is new in Node 20. In this blog, we will deal with the major updates for Node.js 20.

Some reports show around 2.0 of all the websites whose web server we know uses Node.js. The popularity of Node.js accounts for the high performance, scalability, large community support, and extensibility it offers. Node.js was initially released in May 2009 and in all these past years there have been multiple versions launched. Node.js is used by many popular websites and has huge community support which works constantly to improve Node.js.

Check out the latest version of Node 20: What’s New

Introducing Node.js 20

If you are here looking for what is new in the latest version of Node 20, you are already aware of the features and advantages of using Node.js for your web development requirements. The Node.js 20 has a lot of add-on features and updates that are going to enhance the performance and improve the security and portability with the changes made to it. There is time for Node.js 20 to be promoted to long-term support, it would be in October 2023. The version Node.js 20 will be supported until April 2026.

New Features in Node 20

We have discussed some of the prominent features of Node.js 20. It would be helpful for you to know before you start using Node.js 20 for your development requirements. Let us get into the details

Permission Model

Node.js 20 has been updated with the permission model feature. It enhances the security of Node.js. This feature enables the developers to restrict permission to access specific resources. Filesystem, spawn process, and create work threads are sections whose access can be controlled with the use of the permission model in Node.js 20. It is one of the highly useful features that has been added, as there are a lot of sensitive data stored in applications and there is a constant threat because of unrestricted access. The permission model feature helps the developer in securing the application from threats, which can lead to the corruption of the software or application.

Custom ESM Loader

In Node.js 20 version the ESM hooks supplied by the loader are now separated from the main thread and run on a separate thread. It helps to keep the loader and the application code independent of each other, which helps in preventing any cross-contamination between them. Also, in this version, there is an option to keep the resolve hooks in the user loader in asynchronicity as per the loader author’s preference.

Upgradation of V8

Along with other upgrades in Node.js, the javascript engine which makes Node.js powerful is also upgraded. In previous versions it was V8 and now in Node.js, it is updated to 11.3. Version 11.3 is a part of Chromium 11.3, it adds to the performance of Node.js and has other features too.

• WebAssembly Tail Call
• Methods that change Array and TypedArray by copy
• Resizeable ArrayBuffer and growable SharedArrayBuffer
• RegExp v flag with set notation + properties of string
• Addition to Strings with two new methods-isWellFormed and toWellFormed.

Web Crypto API

The previous versions of Node.js already had crypto in use for purposes like authentication of users and services, data encryption, and decryption. Now in Node.js 20 the coercion and validation conform with the specifications of WebIDL. It improves the interoperability and other implementations of Web Crypto API.

Stable Test Runner

The test-runner module was introduced in Node.js version 19, which was experimental. Now with the recent launch of Node.js 20, the developers will find a stable version to work with. This feature provides a way to build and run a test suite. It is a quick and simple method, which doesn’t require downloading additional dependencies. Some other addition is;

• Mocking capabilities
• Experimental test coverage
• Configurable and custom test reporters
• Node–test for running multiple test files in parallel

Ada 2.0 included

Node.js 20 has included Ada 2.0 which is responsible for improving the URL parsing performance. The upgrade in node:url enhances the URL.domainToASCII and URL.domainToUnicode functions. It eliminates the need for ICU prerequisites in URL hostname parsing, which was required in earlier versions.

Single executable apps

There has been constant work going on single executable apps by the node.js developers to make them better. Single executable apps allow the distribution of Node.js apps system without Node.js being installed. The latest version Node.js 20 lets you build a single executable app by injecting a blob prepared by Node.js from a JSON config rather than injecting the raw JavaScript file.

Conclusion

We have discussed all the major updates in Node.js 20. You can download the latest version and start implementing Node.js 20 for your upcoming projects. We have been working on Node.js and have an experienced team of Node.js developers with us. If you need help with updating to Node.js or looking for a Node.js development company that can assist you with your project, contact us.