Microsoft’s beta Napa.js runtime is offering multithreaded support for the Node.js server-side JavaScript platform, to provide the flexibility of JavaScript with speedy performance akin to C++’s.

By introducing multithreading to Node.js, the Napa.js runtime can more easily handle computation-intensive tasks, Microsoft said.

Built on the same V8 JavaScript runtime as Node.js, Napa.js can be embedded in a host process without Node.js dependency. It can be installed via NPM by typing npm install napajs .

The Node.js Foundation, which oversees the development of Node.js itself, sees Napa.js as part of the Node.js ecosystem, addressing a use case that complements Node.js by providing a way to run multithreaded JavaScript processes for computationally heavy uses cases.

Napa.js also has:

A Node.js-compatible module architecture with support for NPM.

An API for object transportation, object-sharing, and asynchronous processing capabilities on JavaScript threads.

An API for pluggable logging, metric, and memory allocation.

Microsoft’s Napa.js plans include: