Node.js 24 drops MSVC support

Node.js 24 has been released. The latest version of the open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime upgrades the Google V8 JavaScript engine to version 13.6 and the NPM package manager to version 11. Node.js 24 also drops support for MSVC, Microsoft’s C/C++ compiler, and ClangCL is now required to compile Node.js on Windows.

Introduced on May 6 as the “Current” release of Node.js, Node.js 24 enters long-term support status in October. It can be downloaded from nodejs.org.

The Node.js 24 release features V8 13.6, with new JavaScript features including Float16Array, explicit resource management, and WebAssembly Memory64 support, which adds support for 64-bit memory indexes to WebAssembly. NPM 11, meanwhile, offers performance and security improvements and better compatibility with modern JavaScript packages. With the removal of support for MSVC, ClangCL is now required to compile Node.js on Windows.

In other changes in Node.js 24:

AsyncLocalStorage now uses AsyncContextFrame by default, providing a more efficient implementation of asynchronous context tracking. This improves performance and makes the API more robust for advanced use cases.

The URLPattern API now is exposed on the global object; this makes it easier to use without explicit imports. The API provides pattern matching system for URLs, similar to how regular expressions work for strings.

The test runner module now waits automatically for subtests to finish, eliminating the need to manually await test promises. This makes writing tests more intuitive and reduces common errors related to unhandled promises.