Node.js 7 is in Beta, boosting more performance, memory improvement, module safety and virtual machine agnosticism. It also features the V8, version 5.4 JavaScript engine, a version that “delivers a number of key improvements in memory footprint and startup speed,” with peak memory consumption of on-heap memory reduced by up to 40%. Another great improvement is the increase of support of ECMAScript 6 language features which it’s up to 98%, an amazing rise from the 56% in version 5.

“In Node.js v6, which will become the active Long Term Support release in October 2016, there were a number of regressions caused by a file system API that were intended to benefit performance, but hurt modules. Node.js v7 is working to fix these issues while remaining performant.”

Mikeal Rogers, Node.js community manager

A big change is Canary in the Gold mine, this technology will help maintain Node modules during updates in node versions by pulling down modules from npm and testing them to see if they fail in Node.js updates.

“The key focus for V7 was make sure modules in the ecosystem are keeping up with Node Core”

Rod Vagg, chairperson for the Node.js Technical Steering Committee

This method will give a lot of useful information to the team in regards to modules and updates. V7 will also support the Chakra JavaScript engine, although the V8 will still be the default engine. The goal here is to get Node.js an agnostic state in regards to VM.

This beta release is the first one since the merger between io.js and Node.js, the moment Node reunited all of its resources and people under one roof. There will be several betas before the final and official V7 release, to smooth out any issues that may come up.

Node.js V8 is to be released in the spring, sometime in April 2017.

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