How to use node version manager (NVM) on ubuntu 20.04

Manage Node.js versions on ubuntu

2 min readMay 25, 2020

Node Version Manager (NVM) is a tool used to manage multiple active Node.js versions. The Node.js platform, Node.js community of tools, and Node.js libraries are fast-moving targets — what might work under one Node.js version is not guaranteed to work for another version of Node.js.

Using NVM, you can easily switch between multiple versions of Node.js right from the command line and set up aliases to switch between different downloaded versions with ease.

Setting Up NVM

Run the NVM installer using the following command:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash

This will install the nvm script to your user account. To use it, you must first source your .bashrc file:

$ source ~/.bashrc

We can quickly verify that NVM is now installed and working properly with the following command:

nvm --version

Using NVM

1.Install Node.js

nvm install <SPECIFIC_NODE_VERSION>

2.Install Node.js latest version

nvm install node

3. To use any specific version of Node.js for your code

nvm use <SPECIFIC_NODE_VERSION>

4. To list installed Node.js versions locally on your machine, use

nvm ls

5. List all available LTS versions of Node.js.

nvm ls-remote

Switching between Node.js versions

nvm use <SPECIFIC_NODE_VERSION>

To switch through installed versions nvm provides the nvm use command. This works similarly to the install command. So, you need to follow this by a version number or an alias.