Upgrading Your Node.js Version
Gatsby’s Node.js support policy
Gatsby aims to support any version of Node that has a release status of Current, Active, or Maintenance. Once a major version of Node reaches End of Life status Gatsby will stop supporting that version.
Gatsby will stop supporting the End of Life Node release in a minor version.
Check Node’s releases document for version statuses.
What version of Node.js do I have?
Run node -v in a terminal to see which version of Node.js you have.
This example shows Node.js version 14, specifically v14.19.2.
Upgrading from Node.js version 12
Node.js version 12 End-of-life date is April 30, 2022. Many of Gatsby’s dependencies are updating to Node.js version 14 and above. Gatsby must also update in order to deliver new features and bug fixes more quickly.
Generally, it’s recommended to use the Node version whose status is Active LTS (Node 16 currently in summer 2022).
What about Node.js 15 and other odd release versions? Stable versions of Node.js are evenly numbered releases - Node.js 14, Node.js 16, Node.js 18 etc. Only use uneven release numbers if you’d like to try cutting-edge and experimental features.
There are multiple ways to update your version of Node.js depending on how you originally installed it. Read on to find the best approach for you.
Using Homebrew
This is the recommended way to install a newer version of Node.
You will have Homebrew installed on your computer if you followed part zero of the Gatsby tutorial. Homebrew is a program that allows you to install specific versions of Node.js (and other software).
To update from Node.js 12 to Node.js 14 using Homebrew, open a terminal and run the following commands:
You should see output similar to this:
You’re interested in the next stable version of Node.js after Node.js 12, which is Node.js 14. Homebrew makes this available in a package called node@14. Run:
Once that’s complete, run:
to confirm that you’ve upgraded from Node.js version 12 up to version 14.
Using a Node.js version management package
There are two popular packages used for managing multiple versions of Node.js on your system. Use one of these to update to a newer version of Node.js if they’re already available on your computer.
These packages are very useful for people that regularly work with different versions of Node.js.
nvm
Run
in a terminal to see if nvm is installed on your system. If it’s installed, you can run:
to install and use Node.js version 14.
Check nvm’s documentation for further instructions.
n
Run:
in a terminal to see if n is installed on your system. If it’s installed, you can run n 14 to install and use Node.js version 14.
Check n’s documentation for further instructions.
Installing from nodejs.org
If you aren’t using any of the previously listed installation methods, you can download a Node.js installer directly from nodejs.org.
Gatsby’s recommended way to install Node.js is by using Homebrew. Refer to the previous Homebrew section of this document for more info.
Conclusion
Gatsby takes backwards compatibility seriously and aims to support older versions of Node.js for as long as possible. We understand that juggling different software versions is not a productive way to spend your day.
Gatsby also relies on a huge ecosystem of JavaScript dependencies. As the ecosystem moves away from older, unsupported Node.js versions we have to keep pace to ensure that bugs can be fixed and new features can be released.
In this document, you learned how you upgrade from Node.js version 12 to Node.js version 14.