[[installation]]
== Installation

This page guides you through the installation process of the client.

To install the latest version of the client, run the following command:

[source,sh]
----
npm install @elastic/elasticsearch
----

To install a specific major version of the client, run the following command:

[source,sh]
----
npm install @elastic/elasticsearch@<major>
----

To learn more about the supported major versions, please refer to the
<<js-compatibility-matrix>>.

[discrete]
[[nodejs-support]]
=== Node.js support

NOTE: The minimum supported version of Node.js is `v10`.

The client versioning follows the {stack} versioning, this means that
major, minor, and patch releases are done following a precise schedule that
often does not coincide with the https://nodejs.org/en/about/releases/[Node.js release] times.

To avoid support insecure and unsupported versions of Node.js, the
client *will drop the support of EOL versions of Node.js between minor releases*.
Typically, as soon as a Node.js version goes into EOL, the client will continue
to support that version for at least another minor release. If you are using the client
with a version of Node.js that will be unsupported soon, you will see a warning
in your logs (the client will start logging the warning with two minors in advance).

Unless you are *always* using a supported version of Node.js,
we recommend defining the client dependency in your
`package.json` with the `~` instead of `^`. In this way, you will lock the
dependency on the minor release and not the major. (for example, `~7.10.0` instead
of `^7.10.0`).

[%header,cols=3*]
|===
|Node.js Version
|Node.js EOL date
|End of support

|`8.x`
|December 2019
|`7.11` (early 2021)

|`10.x`
|April 2021
|`7.12` (mid 2021)
|===

[discrete]
[[js-compatibility-matrix]]
=== Compatibility matrix

Elastic language clients are guaranteed to be able to communicate with Elasticsearch
or Elastic solutions running on the same major version and greater or equal minor version.

Language clients are forward compatible; meaning that clients support communicating
with greater minor versions of Elasticsearch. Elastic language clients are not
guaranteed to be backwards compatible.

[%header,cols=2*]
|===
|{es} Version
|Client Version

|`master`
|`master`

|`7.x`
|`7.x`

|`6.x`
|`6.x`

|`5.x`
|`5.x`
|===


[discrete]
==== Browser

WARNING: There is no official support for the browser environment. It exposes
your {es} instance to everyone, which could lead to security issues. We
recommend you to write a lightweight proxy that uses this client instead,
you can see a proxy example https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-js/tree/master/docs/examples/proxy[here].