A curated list of awesome developer tools for writing cross-platform Node.js code.

Contents

• Resources
• Applications
  • Development environment
  • Continuous integration
  • Virtualization
  • Compatibility
  • Databases
• Libraries
  • OS identification
  • Shell
  • Environment
  • Filesystem
  • Signals
  • Processes
  • Streams
  • Desktop UI
  • Windows registry
• Known issues
• Support

Resources

• Core Node.js documentation - Especially the os, path, fs, process and child_process modules.
• Cross-platform Node.js guide - How to write cross-platform Node.js code.
• Microsoft Node.js Guidelines - Tips, tricks, and resources for working with Node.js on Microsoft platforms.
• Writing Cross-Platform Node.js - Great tutorial covering many common issues that arise when writing cross-platform code: path creation, script execution, newline characters.
• Cross-platform terminal characters - All the characters that work on most terminals and most operating systems.

Applications

Development environment

• Node.js - Node.js installer for various platforms.
• nvm-windows - Manage multiple installations of Node.js on a Windows computer.
• nvm / n - Node version manager for macOS/Linux.
• npm-windows-upgrade - Upgrade npm on Windows.
• windows-build-tools - Install C++ Build Tools for Windows using npm.

Continuous integration

• AppVeyor - Focused on Windows. Free tiers are available for OSS projects.
• Travis - Windows/macOS/Linux. Free for OSS projects.
• Azure Pipelines - Windows/macOS/Linux. Free for OSS projects with 10 parallel jobs.
• Github Action - Windows/macOS/Linux. GitHub Actions makes it easy to automate all your software workflows.
• Gitlab CI - Windows/macOS/Linux. GitLab CI/CD is a tool built into GitLab for software development.

Virtualization

• ievms - Automated installer for the free virtual machine images that Microsoft provides for testing on multiple versions of IE. These images can be useful for cross-platform testing various technologies, however make sure you read and understand Microsofts’ licensing.
• VirtualBox - General purpose software for running x86 virtual machines.
• Docker - Software platform to create, deploy and manage virtualized application containers on a common operating system, with an ecosystem of allied tools.

Compatibility

• Wine - Run Windows API calls on Linux, Mac, BSD and Solaris.
• Cygwin - Run POSIX on Windows.
• WSL - Run the Linux command line on Windows (ELF binary execution, system calls, filesystem, Bash, core utilities, common applications).
• MinGW - gcc on Windows.
• msys / Git Bash - Bash on Windows.

Databases

• Redis - Native port of Redis for Windows.

Libraries

OS identification

• is-windows - Detect whether the current platform is Windows.
• is-wsl - Detect whether current platform is WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).
• getos - Retrieve the current OS, including Linux distribution.
• os-name - Get the name of the current operating system.
• systeminformation - Hardware/software system information.

Shell

• execa - Cross-platform implementation of child_process.{execFile,exec}.
• gulp-execa - Cross-platform command execution in Gulp.js.
• cross-spawn - Cross-platform implementation of child_process.spawn().
• shelljs - Cross-platform Unix shell commands.
• node-windows - Windows support for Node.js scripts (daemons, eventlog, UAC, etc).
• log-symbols - Colored symbols for various log levels with Windows fallbacks.
• figures - Unicode symbols with Windows fallbacks.
• clipboardy / clipboard-cli - Cross-platform copy/paste.

Environment

• cross-env - Set environment variables cross-platform.
• user-home - Get the path to the user home directory. Cross-platform.
• username - Get the current username.
• osenv - Cross-platform environment variables.
• is-elevated - Check if the process is running with elevated privileges.
• which - Cross-platform implementation of Unix’s which.

Filesystem

• rimraf / del - Delete files and folders. Cross-platform.
• make-dir - Cross-platform mkdir -p.
• readdirp - Recursive version of fs.readdir().
• cpy - Copy files. Cross-platform.
• chokidar - Improved cross-platform file watching.
• graceful-fs - Improves the fs module, especially on Windows.
• fs-extra - Combines graceful-fs with better JSON file reading and promises.
• any-path - Use Windows and POSIX paths interchangeably when fetching values from an object.
• dev-null-cli - Cross-platform /dev/null.
• global-cache-dir - Get the global OS-specific cache directory.

Signals

• fkill - Kill processes. Cross-platform.
• signal-exit - Cross-platform exit handler.
• human-signals - Human-friendly process signals.

Processes

• ps-list - Get running processes.
• process-exists - Check if a process exists.

Streams

• noop-stream - Cross-platform fs.createReadStream('/dev/null').
• random-bytes-readable-stream - Cross-platform fs.createReadStream('/dev/urandom').

Desktop UI

• open - Opens stuff like websites, files, executables. Cross-platform.
• node-notifier - Cross-platform desktop notifications.

Windows registry

• node-winreg - Access the Windows registry.
• rage-edit - Access/modify the Windows registry.
• windows-registry-node - Access/modify the Windows registry and set file associations.

Known issues

• cmd.exe unicode woes - By default, cmd.exe does not display Unicode characters on Windows.
• spawn issues - child_process.spawn() behavior is not consistent between Windows and Linux.
• exec() behavior between shells - Depending on the shell being used, e.g., bash vs. dash, child_process.exec() has inconsistent exit behavior.

See also

• awesome-desktop-js - List of tools to build JavaScript applications on the desktop.

Support

If you found an error or would like to add more information, don’t hesitate to submit an issue on GitHub.

Everyone is welcome regardless of personal background. We enforce a Code of conduct in order to promote a positive and inclusive environment.

Contributing

This project was made with ❤️. The simplest way to give back is by starring and sharing it online.

If the documentation is unclear or has a typo, please click on the page’s Edit button (pencil icon) and suggest a correction.

If you would like to help us fix an error or add more information, please check our guidelines. Pull requests are welcome!

Thanks go to these wonderful people:

Benjamin E. Coe 💻 🤔 📖	ehmicky 💻 🤔 📖	Sindre Sorhus 💻 🤔 📖	Hongarc 🎨 📖 💻	Kent C. Dodds 🤔	Jason Cooke 📖	Aron Hafner 📖
ShPelles 📖	Xiaodan Mao 📖	James Talmage 📖	Sylvain PONTOREAU 📖	Steven 🤔

This project follows the all-contributors specification.

License

crossplatformnodejs.md Github