What Node.js is

In the JavaScript course your code ran inside a browser. The browser loaded your file, ran it, and gave you a page to change.

Node.js is a program that runs JavaScript without a browser. You install it on a computer, give it a file, and it runs the code in that file.

Node.js uses V8, the same JavaScript engine as Chrome. So the language is the one you already know. Variables, functions, arrays, objects and promises all work the same way.

People use Node.js to build web servers, APIs and command-line tools. In this course you go from a first file to a tested API.

Loading the editor…