If you are working on various projects, you have likely encountered situations where you need to have multiple versions of Node.js installed on your computer.

You might not know it, but managing multiple Node.js versions is something you can do with pnpm, using the pnpm env command.

An example

pnpm env use -g lts 

This example demonstrates how to install the LTS version of Node.js.

Additionally, you can install specific versions of Node.js, view the versions already present on your computer, or remove one.

Why use pnpm as your Node version manager?

Because managing your Node.js version is built into pnpm: if you already use pnpm as your npm package manager, you don't need to install another tool.

But there is absolutely nothing wrong with using another Node version manager if you prefer. I was using nvm-windows before and I was happy with it. I just don't see the point of installing it anymore as similar functionality is already available in pnpm.

Good to know

To specify a Node.js version to use in a project/folder, you can add an .npmrc file use-node-version​ setting, like that:

use-node-version=16.16.0