Google Cloud has announced support for the popular cross-platform Node JavaScript runtime in the standard App Engine environment

Node.js allows server code to be written in JavaScript. With the support added today, Google is seeking to make this process as simple for developers as possible.

To ensure simplicity, Google is not putting any limitation on the Node.js packages that developers can use — and it will not have any language or API restrictions.

Here are the benefits Google claims its Node.js support will bring:

• Fast deployments and automatic scaling – With App Engine standard environment, you can expect short deployment times. For example, it takes under a minute to deploy a basic Express.js application. Further, your Node.js apps will scale instantaneously depending on web traffic; App Engine automatically scales to zero when there are no incoming requests and quickly scales up the number of instances when traffic increases.

• Idiomatic developer experience – When designing the new runtime, we focused on providing a delightful and idiomatic developer experience. For example, the new Node.js runtime has no language or API restrictions. You can use your favorite Node.js modules, including native ones, by simply declaring your npm dependencies in your package.json, and App Engine installs them in the cloud after deploying your app. Out of the box, you will find your application logs and key performance indicators in Stackdriver. Finally, the base image contains the OS packages you need to run headless Chrome, which you can easily control using the Puppeteer module. Read more in the documentation.

• Strong security – With our automated one-click certificate generation, you can serve your application under a secure HTTPS URL with your own custom domain. In addition, we take care of security updates so that you don't have to, automatically updating the operating system and Node.js minor and patch versions.

Node.js has some history with Google. The runtime is based on V8, Google's open source high-performance JavaScript engine. As of last year, the company is also a Platinum Sponsor of the Node.js foundation.

The new support for Node.js can be trialed in App Engine’s free tier.

An official quickstart guide can be found here.

Do you plan on using the Node.js runtime in Google App Engine? Let us know in the comments.

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