NPM

JavaScript package manager and the world’s largest software registry.

Overview

npm is the package manager and registry for JavaScript, maintained by GitHub. It hosts the world's largest software registry with over two million packages, serving more than 17 million developers worldwide. npm provides both a free public registry for open-source code sharing and commercial tools for teams and organizations managing private packages and dependencies.

The platform offers multiple tiers: a free plan for public packages, Pro for individual developers needing private packages, and Teams for organizations requiring team-based permissions and management. All plans include access to the npm CLI and the core registry functionality.

Key features

Public package registry
Private packages
Package-based permissions
Team-based permissions
Automatic security warnings
npm CLI
2FA support

Pros

Largest software registry with 2M+ packages
Free tier for public packages
Trusted by 17M+ developers worldwide
Integrated security warnings
Multiple pricing tiers for different needs

Cons

2FA bypass tokens being restricted
Requires account for private packages
Team plan requires per-user pricing

Use this if

You need to publish, manage, or install JavaScript packages; you're building Node.js applications; you want to share code with the JavaScript community.

Skip this if

You're working exclusively with other programming languages; you don't need package management; you prefer alternative registries like Yarn or pnpm.

Best for

JavaScript developersNode.js projectsOpen-source package distributionTeam package managementPrivate dependency hosting

Alternatives

YarnpnpmBunMaven (for Java)PyPI (for Python)

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