Microsoft’s Edge dev team releases new cross-platform version of its Node-ChakraCore engine

2 min. read

Published on July 28, 2017

published on July 28, 2017

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Since Microsoft launched its new Edge browser with Windows 10 two years ago, the company made it clear that it wants to expand its Chakracore Javascript engine beyond Windows 10 devices. Perhaps, that’s why Redmond open sourced the engine two years ago, before announcing efforts to bring it to macOS and Linux last year

Yesterday, the company announced the release of a new preview of Node-ChakraCore, its engine based on Node.js 8 that now runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. The engine now supports the next-generation Node.js API (N-API), which aims to provide a stable Node API for native module developers. “This allows N-API-enabled native modules to just work across different versions and flavors of Node.js, without recompilations,” emphasized the Edge team.

In addition, support for Node.js API, Microsoft also announced that Node-ChakraCore has also been used to make the Node.js Javascript runtime environment run on iOS. “This takes Node.js to iOS for the first time, expanding the reach of the Node.js ecosystem to an entirely new category of devices,” explained the team.

As Microsoft is now done with making Node-Chakracore fully cross-platform, the Edge team will now focus on other priorities such as performance and module compatibility. “These are our primary focus for the immediate future, and we look forward to sharing progress with the community as it happens,” the blog post reads. You can download the latest versions of Node-Chakracore on the dedicated GitHub.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.