How do I deploy Node js applications as a single executable file

Question

Supposed I have written a Node js application  and I now would like to distribute it  Of course  I want to make it easy for the user  hence I do not want him to install Node js  run npm install and then manually type node app js   What I d prefer was a single executable file  e g  an  exe file on Windows   How could I approach this   I am aware of this thread  anyway this is only about Windows  How could I achieve this in a platform-independent manner  Any ideas  Best practices        The perfect solution was a  compiler  I can give a source folder to  The source folder contains the app itself in various  js files  the node modules folder and some metadata  such as the package json  The output should be binaries for various platforms  such as Windows  OS X and Linux   Oh  and what s important  I do not want to make any changes to the source code  so calls to require with relative paths should still work  even if this relative path is now inside the packaged app   Any ideas   PS  I do not want the user to install Node js independently  it should be included inside the executable as well

User · Answer

In addition to nexe  browserify can be used to bundle up all your dependencies as a single  js file  This does not bundle the actual node executable  just handles the javascript side  It too does not handle native modules  The command line options for pure node compilation would be browserify --output bundle js --bare --dg false input js

User · Answer

You could create a git repo and setup a link to the node git repo as a dependency   Then any user who clones the repo could also install node      git submodule  --quiet  add  -b branch   -f --force  git submodule add  var Node-repo git common   You could easily package a script up to automatically clone the git repo you have hosted somewhere and  install  from one that one script file      bin sh  clone git repo git clone your-repo git

User · Answer

Meanwhile I have found the  for me  perfect solution  nexe  which creates a single executable from a Node js application including all of its modules   It s the next best thing to an ideal solution

User · Answer

There are a number of steps you have to go through to create an installer and it varies for each Operating System  For Example    on Mac OS X you need to create a  pkg  there are instructions on how to do that here  https   coolaj86 com articles how-to-create-an-osx-pkg-installer html on Ubuntu Linux you need to create a  deb  there are instruction on how to do that here  https   coolaj86 com articles how-to-create-a-debian-installer html on Microsoft Windows you need to create a  exe or  msi  there are instruction on how do that using the innosetup installer here  https   coolaj86 com articles how-to-create-an-innosetup-installer html

User · Answer

JXcore will allow you to turn any nodejs application into a single executable  including all dependencies  in either Windows  Linux  or Mac OS X   Here is a link to the installer  https   github com jxcore jxcore-release  And here is a link to how to set it up  http   jxcore com turn-node-applications-into-executables   It is very easy to use and I have tested it in both Windows 8 1 and Ubuntu 14 04   FYI  JXcore is a fork of NodeJS so it is 100  NodeJS compatible  with some extra features

User · Answer

Not to beat a dead horse  but the solution you re describing sounds a lot like Node-Webkit   From the Git Page      node-webkit is an app runtime based on Chromium and node js  You can write native apps in HTML and JavaScript with node-webkit  It also lets you call Node js modules directly from the DOM and enables a new way of writing native applications with all Web technologies    These instructions specifically detail the creation of a single file app that a user can execute  and this portion describes the external dependencies   I m not sure if it s the exact solution  but it seems pretty close    Hope it helps

User · Answer

First  we re talking about packaging a Node js app for workshops  demos  etc  where it can be handy to have an app  just running  without the need for the end user to care about installation and dependencies   You can try the following setup    Get your apps source code npm install all dependencies  via package json  to the local node modules directory  It is important to perform this step on each platform you want to support separately  in case of binary dependencies  Copy the Node js binary     node exe on Windows   probably   usr local bin node on OS X Linux to your project s root folder  On OS X Linux you can find the location of the Node js binary with which node    For Windows  Create a self extracting archive  7zip extra supports a way to execute a command right after extraction  see  http   www msfn org board topic 39048-how-to-make-a-7-zip-switchless-installer    For OS X Linux  You can use tools like makeself or unzipsfx  I don t know if this is compiled with CHEAP SFX AUTORUN defined by default    These tools will extract the archive to a temporary directory  execute the given command  e g  node app js  and remove all files when finished

[node.js] How do I deploy Node.js applications as a single executable file?

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