When will Node-RED 4.0 be released?

General
1

Since Node.js 16 reached end of life in October 2023, running the official Docker image of Node-RED version 3.x can no longer be considered safe. While I understand that requiring Node.js 18 or 20 would constitute a breaking change, and thus won't happen before Node-RED 4.0, it would be beneficial to have insight into the timeline for the next major update. Unfortunately, the release page hasn't been updated since 2022, still tentatively suggesting the release of Node-RED 4.0 for April 2023.

The situation is becoming increasingly problematic as numerous downstream dependencies of third-party Node-RED packages have already transitioned to requiring Node.js version 18 or higher. As a result, they cannot be seamlessly installed onto Node-RED 3.x.

1 Like
2

18 and 20 already recommended
https://nodered.org/docs/faq/node-versions

3

Why does the fact that node-red can be used with earlier versions make it unsafe when it is used with 18 or 20?

4

Your comment made me realize that I didn't mention Node-RED's official Docker image at all. :man_facepalming: Updated my original post accordingly now.

5

I'm no docker expert but it's not a lot of trouble to load an nr image with a more recent version of node.js Docker image using node16 - #4 by UnborN

6

We'll have an initial beta of Node-RED 4.0 in the next couple weeks.

We already publish docker images for Node-RED 3.x for node 18, all the details of the available images is available here: GitHub - node-red/node-red-docker: Repository for all things Node-RED and Docker related

There's nothing stopping you upgrading today.

The latest tag does still point at node 14, but as has been discussed a number of times, changing the latest tag to a different node version is a major change and not one we will do in a minor release.

2 Likes
7

True, if you want to use ready-made images.

However, if you want/need to build your own, then the docker-custom Dockerfile (node-red-docker/docker-custom/Dockerfile.custom at master · node-red/node-red-docker · GitHub) is still using ARG NODE_VERSION=16
I have tried to change to 18. It failed. Not being good at this, I have tried to fix this, though...

8

That's exciting news. Updating the release page might be a worthwhile consideration.