In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, I sat down with Matteo Collina—chair of the Node.js project and founder of Platformatic—for a deep, no-fluff conversation about Node.js performance in the real world. We dug into what actually happens when you run Node at scale, especially with server-side rendering, Kubernetes, and modern frameworks like Next.js.

We also challenged some popular assumptions—like whether newer runtimes automatically mean better performance—and explored how benchmarking, flame graphs, and smarter scheduling can completely change the reliability of production systems. If you’re running Node in Kubernetes, doing SSR, or trying to squeeze more performance out of your backend, this episode will definitely make you rethink your stack.

Links & Resources

Platformatic – https://platformatic.dev
Watt Application Server (WattPM) – https://www.npmjs.com/package/wattpm
Node.js Core Web Vitals (CrUX Dataset) – https://developer.chrome.com/docs/crux
Matteo Collina on X (Twitter) – https://twitter.com/matteocollina
NodeLand Newsletter – https://nodeland.dev

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Node.js Performance, Kubernetes, and Why “Fast” Isn’t Always Fast - JSJ 702