Node.js is a popular JavaScript runtime widely used by JavaScript-based web apps. Some modern headless content management systems such as Ghost and Strapi also reply on Node.js to run. Node.js itself is a cross-platform software, which is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS. If you are a Windows user, you can install Node.js on your local machine to make local development of an app or CMS theme.

To install Node.js in Windows, first, visit the official website of Node.js to download install the installer file. There are two Node.js versions you can download: the LTS version (which has longer support) and the current version.

Once the installer file (in the MSI format) is downloaded, simply double-click it to start the installation process. On the appearing window, you can click the Next button.

On the next step, you will ask to accept the EULA (End-User License Agreement). Simply accept the EULA and click the Next button.

Select the directory location of the Node.js installation and click the Next button. If you want to change the default location, you can simply click the Change button and select your preferred location.

Node.js comes with some features. On the next step, you will be asked to select the features you want to include in the installation. If you have no idea, you can simply click the Next button. The installer will select the necessary features.

Select the tools you want to include in the installation and click the Next button. You can tick the Automatically install the necessary tools option if you want to install the additional tools.

Lastly, you can click the Install button to start installing Node.js on your Windows machine.

Wait a moment until the installation process is done.

Once the installation process is done, you can verify the installation by typing node -v on Command Prompt. If you see the following output, Node.js has been successfully installed.

The installation you have just performed above has included NPM — a package manager for JavaScript. NPM is commonly used to install JavaScript frameworks and apps. Ghost — a JavaScript-based CMS — is one of the examples of JavaScript apps that can be installed using NPM. You can type npm -v to check to NPM version installed on your Windows machine.