You can manage different versions of Node.js locally with the Node Version Manager (nvm). However, the Fast Node Manager (fnm) offers some advantages:

• Cross-platform support (i.e. for macOS, Windows, Linux)
• Easy installation
• Fast execution speed
• Works with .node-version and .nvmrc files

For installation details, see the Github Repo. Below I summarize the steps needed to install fnm for macOS.

Installation

Installation using Homebrew is the easiest. You only need to install one package:

brew install fnm

After that, the following line of code needs to be added to the .zprofile file (or .zshrc file):

eval "$(fnm env --use-on-cd --shell zsh)"

If oh my zsh is instalöed, you can also add a file (e.g. fnm_init.zsh) into the folder ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/ containing:

# Initialite fnm environment
eval "$(fnm env --use-on-cd --shell zsh)"

Now the terminal environment has to be restarted and fnm is ready to use!

Usage

The following are probably the most important or most frequently used commands:

• fnm list-remote: Returns a list of all available versions of Node.js
• fnm list: Returns a list of all installed versions of Node.js
• fnm install xxx: Installs the version of Node.js specified by xxx
• fnm use xxx: Changes the used version of Node.js
• fnm env: Outputs the required environment variables for fnm
• fnm default xxx: Sets xxx as the default version
• fnm current: Outputs the current version
• fnm uninstall xxx: Deletes the version of Node.js specified by xxx