Node: 18 Repack

Let's look under the hood. 1. Native Fetch API (No More node-fetch ) For years, making an HTTP request in Node meant one of two things: installing node-fetch or using axios . It felt archaic that the runtime didn't include the same fetch your browser had.

// Good import readFile from 'node:fs/promises'; // Bad (in ESM, this might break with bundlers) import readFile from 'fs'; Short answer: No for new projects. Long answer: It depends. node 18

For small microservices or internal tools, Node 18's test runner eliminated configuration fatigue. No more jest.config.js , no more mocha --timeout . Just node --test and go. Streaming in Node has always been powerful but verbose. Node 18 shipped the Web Streams API as a global, matching the spec used in browsers. Let's look under the hood

However, many enterprises move slowly. If you're maintaining a production app on Node 18, here is your upgrade path: It felt archaic that the runtime didn't include