Exploring competitive features in Node.js v18 and v19

Node.js, a popular JavaScript runtime since 2009, has introduced significant features in its recent versions, v18 and v19, countering the perception of stagnation amidst the emergence of new runtimes like Deno and Bun. Node.js v18, released in April 2022 and promoted to LTS in October 2022, includes an inbuilt Fetch API, a test runner module, and support for the Web Streams API, along with an upgraded V8 engine to version 10.1. It also brings an experimental watch mode feature, allowing automatic process restarts upon file changes, which was backported when Node.js v19 was released. Node.js v19, released in October 2022, further enhances this with HTTP/1.1 KeepAlive enabled by default, contributing to faster outgoing connections. Although Node.js v19 will not be promoted to LTS, these releases demonstrate ongoing development and innovation within Node.js, even as Bun and Deno offer features like native TypeScript support and faster execution.