Major Node Changes

This document is a short list of changes in Node.js' major releases. It does not cover point releases, just e.g., v13, v14 and so on.

v21 (2022)

• Experimental support (behind a flag) for
  • native WebSocket
  • default ESM support
• Added global navigator object
• v8 11.8, including array groupBy

v20 (2023)

• V8 11.3, including change array by-copy methods such as toSorted
• Experimental permission model (e.g., restrict FS access)
• Marks the test runner as stable

v19 (2022)

• Adds node --watch
• V8 10.7

v18 (2022, LTS until 2025-04-30)

• Adds built-in Fetch API (fetch)
  • Includes Headers, FormData, Blob and so on
  • Adds Web Streams API including ReadableStream and friends
• Adds BroadcastChannel
• Adds experimental test runner
• V8 10.1
  • Includes Array.findLast() and Array.findLastIndex()
• Built-in test runner

v17 (2021)

• V8 9.5

v16 (2021, LTS until 2024-04-30)

• Adds 'timers/promises' API
• V8 9.0
  • Adds the /d flag to regular expressions
• Native support for arm64 on macOS
• Adds AbortController as stable

v15 (2020)

• NPM 7 #35631
• Throw On Unhandled Rejections #33021
  • If you create a Promise without a catch handler, or use a top-level await, a failure will cause your program to crash by default
• V8 8.6
  • Supports new operators &&=, ||=, and ??=

v14 (2020, LTS until 2023-04-30)

• ES Modules no longer generate warnings
• Supports top-level await
• V8 8.1
  • Supports optional chaining, nullish coalescing and friends (the ?., ?? operators)
  • Improved Intl support

v13 (2019)

• Support for ECMAScript modules
  • Includes .mjs extension and setting "type": "module"
• Full ICU support, with support for hundreds of locales