Electron Node and Chrome version outdated?

Question

I am trying to develop a webgl desktop app, I am just a bit worried about the versions that electron shows.

I currently get this:

But chrome is at version 64 I think since jan 2018? Also my node.js version locally is 9.8.0.

So I was wondering electron comes with it's own nodejs distribution ?

Answer 1

Yes, Electron comes with its own bundled version of NodeJS. However, note that neither Electron nor NodeJS are required in order to run apps built in Electron.

As for why the version of NodeJS bundled with Electron is out of date, you need look no further than the official FAQ:

When will Electron upgrade to latest Node.js?

When a new version of Node.js gets released, we usually wait for about a month before upgrading the one in Electron. So we can avoid getting affected by bugs introduced in new Node.js versions, which happens very often.

New features of Node.js are usually brought by V8 upgrades, since Electron is using the V8 shipped by Chrome browser, the shiny new JavaScript feature of a new Node.js version is usually already in Electron.