OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--npm, Inc., which runs the world’s largest software registry and maintains the npm software package management application, today announced the public availability of npm@5, a free update to the npm developer tool featuring significant speed, security, and reliability improvements.
With npm@5, common package management tasks such as package installation and version updates are now approximately five times faster than in prior versions. The update benefits nearly 8 million npm users worldwide, as well as customers of npm’s Orgs collaboration tool and npm Enterprise self-hosted product. Benchmarks show that when all npm users download and use the npm@5 update, it will save over 70 years of developer time each day.
npm@5 is the product of more than four years of planning and collaboration within the open source software development community, and coincides with the Node.js Project’s release of Node.js v8.0.0. Starting today, developers who download and install Node.js 8 will automatically receive npm@5, as well.
“Having Node.js 8.0.0 and npm@5 come out at the same time is a huge benefit to Node.js users who can instantly reap the performance, security and reliability benefits of npm@5 with any version of Node.js,” said Mark Hinkle, executive director of the Node.js Foundation. “This is also a testament to the amazing collaboration happening in our shared community and strong relationship with npm.”
With a rewrite of its entire download subsystem and a major overhaul of its user experience, npm@5’s features and benefits include:
- Self-healing cache and automatic error recovery eliminate hours of troubleshooting associated with faulty network connections or corrupted files.
- Industry-first SHA-512 code verification protects against data corruption and malicious attacks.
- Lockfiles provide peace of mind that software packages will install identically on each developer’s computer, regardless of the specifics of their development environment.
- A refreshed command-line interface produces more informative and helpful output to allow developers to easily assess the software packages they build and install.
As the default package manager for the npm Registry, npm@5 supports a broad set of use cases across multiple platforms. More than 60 percent of the world’s JavaScript software developers use npm packages every day, and software managed by npm is deployed in a wide range of applications including front-end, back-end, robotics, IoT hardware, and NASA spacesuits.
“Tens of thousands of our customers deploy npm-powered applications, on average, once a minute, so npm@5’s speed improvements will make a noticeable difference,” said Guillermo Rauch, CEO and co-founder of ZEIT. “npm lets us move quickly, and we let others move quickly.”
In a typical example of npm@5’s performance improvements, the time required to install dependencies for the popular library React-native has decreased nearly 80 percent, from 52.61 seconds under npm@4 to 11.53 seconds under npm@5.
“npm is how the world makes software. Every week, developers use npm to download over 2.1 billion packages. npm@5 represents a significant advance in meeting the evolving needs of the JavaScript community,” said Isaac Z. Schlueter, CEO of npm, Inc. “We’re proud of the innovation and contributions we’ve made that will benefit all software developers, especially users of Node.js.”
To download the free npm@5 update, visit https://go.npm.me/npm5.
