Node.js 18 is currently with us, having been released on the 19th of April this year. That is good news to many since developers download and use binaries worldwide for their production environments. This explains why the community has been looking forward to this release with many features that make it very fast.

Remember, contributors constantly work to improve the runtime, introduce new features, and improve developer experience and usability. This simple guide will take you through the top Node.js features you should be aware of.

At long last, v18 offers native fetch functionality in Node.js. This is a standardized web API for directing HTTP or network requests for individuals who need to learn about what we are talking about. Previously, Node.js didn't support it by default. Since JavaScript is used in many areas, it is easy to see why it is excellent news for the entire ecosystem.

Before delving deeper into this feature, remember that a Web Streams API is a set of stream APIs. Also experimental, it allows JavaScript to access streams of data received over the network programmatically and process them as needed. This means that Stream APIs are presently available on the global scope. This would assist with sending the data packets in readable and writable streams. In short, you don’t have to buffer data.

OpenSSL is an open-source implementation of, among other things, SSL and TLS protocols for securing communication. One notable key feature of OpenSSL 3.0 is the new Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) modules. FIPS is a set of US government requirements for governing cryptographic usage in the public sector.

You ought to note different features or changes incorporate asynchronous and event-driven, uses a single-threaded model with event looping, updated platform support, default DNS solution, ECMAScript modules improvements, and Async hooks to refer to a couple. The vast majority of these upcoming features are experimental; without being the ones to discuss, there is a lot of work and proposals from an active community.

It would help if you got your work done to have a broader knowledge of Node.js features and better prepare for what lies ahead. That way, you stand an excellent chance of maximizing these new features and changes.