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Understanding Node.js Versions

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Understanding Node.js Versions

Node.js uses semantic versioning to control the versions of Node.js. Semantic versioning works with the following pattern.

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

Now let’s take a look at one of the builds for Node.js.

Node.js Build

v5.9.0
  1. 5 denotes that it’s a major release
  2. 9 denotes that it’s a minor release
  3. 0 denotes that a patch was applied.

The last part is to take a look at what stable, lts, and nightly are used when looking at Node.js.

  1. stable: Software releases have been verified by core team members as a stable release from development.
  2. lts: Software releases that have LTS(Long-term Support) are typically supported longer then the stable releases
  3. nightly: Software builds that are created every 24 hours.

Now each of this builds mean something very specific for Node.js you can find out what that is by visiting the Release Types of node.

What happened to node versions 0.y.z? If you have tried to use node previously to this book you might have encountered a version of node in the 0.y.z version. This is mostly due to a team of developers that decided to fork off to new project known as io.js. Both of this projects are now merged into a single project known as Node.js as of Sept. 8, 2015. You can find a complete release notes, where each version and date released are documented.

Why are Node.js releases named after elements in the Periodic Table? All releases that are under LTS support are assigned a “codename” from the Periodic Table by convention.