PM2 is the industry-leading process manager for Node.js applications with over 100 million downloads, designed to keep your applications running smoothly in production environments. Whether you're deploying to a VPS server on DigitalOcean or Hetzner, PM2 provides enterprise-grade process management with zero-downtime deployments, automatic crash recovery, and built-in load balancing.
Managing Node.js applications on a VPS requires robust process orchestration to ensure uptime, performance, and reliability. PM2 transforms your server into a production-ready environment by acting as a daemon process manager that monitors, restarts, and optimizes your applications automatically.
Automatic Application Restart PM2 watches your Node.js applications and automatically restarts them if they crash or encounter errors. This auto-restart capability ensures maximum uptime without manual intervention, critical for production deployments.
Cluster Mode & Load Balancing
With a single command (pm2 start app.js -i max), PM2 leverages Node.js cluster mode to spawn multiple instances across all CPU cores. This built-in load balancing distributes incoming traffic evenly, increasing application throughput by 10x on multi-core servers.
Zero-Downtime Deployments
Using pm2 reload, you can update your application code without losing active connections. PM2 restarts worker processes sequentially, ensuring at least one instance always handles requests—perfect for continuous deployment workflows.
Process Monitoring & Logging
Track CPU usage, memory consumption, and vital metrics in real-time with pm2 monit. PM2 automatically captures application logs with centralized log management, and supports log rotation to prevent disk space exhaustion.
Install PM2 globally via npm on your VPS server:
npm install pm2@latest -g
PM2 works seamlessly on Linux (stable), macOS (stable), and Windows (stable) with all Node.js versions 12.X and above.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
pm2 start app.js | Start your Node.js application |
pm2 start app.js -i max | Start in cluster mode (all CPU cores) |
pm2 list | Display all running processes |
pm2 monit | Monitor CPU and memory usage in real-time |
pm2 logs | View application logs |
pm2 restart app | Restart application |
pm2 reload app | Zero-downtime reload |
pm2 stop app | Stop application |
pm2 delete app | Remove from PM2 process list |
1. Ecosystem Configuration File
Create an ecosystem.config.js file to manage multiple applications with environment-specific settings:
module.exports = {
apps: [{
name: 'api-server',
script: './server.js',
instances: 'max',
exec_mode: 'cluster',
env: {
NODE_ENV: 'development'
},
env_production: {
NODE_ENV: 'production'
}
}]
}
Start your apps with: pm2 start ecosystem.config.js --env production
2. Startup Scripts for Server Reboots
Ensure your applications restart automatically after server reboots:
pm2 startup # Generates systemd startup script
pm2 save # Saves current process list
This startup script generation integrates PM2 with your system's init system (systemd, upstart, or launchd).
3. Log Rotation
Install the PM2 log rotation module to prevent logs from consuming disk space:
pm2 install pm2-logrotate
| Feature | PM2 | Forever | systemd |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cluster Mode | ✅ Built-in | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Zero-Downtime Reload | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Load Balancing | ✅ Automatic | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Monitoring Dashboard | ✅ Yes | ❌ Basic | ❌ journalctl only |
| Ecosystem File | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ⚠️ Complex config |
| Active Development | ✅ Active | ❌ Inactive | ✅ Active |
| Node.js Specific | ✅ Optimized | ✅ Yes | ❌ Generic |
Verdict: PM2 is the most feature-rich option for Node.js production deployments, offering 2-10x productivity gains through automation and monitoring. Forever is outdated, while systemd requires more technical expertise but offers system-level integration.
PM2 works seamlessly with modern deployment platforms:
pm2-runtime in containers for optimal process managementFor production setups, pair PM2 with Nginx as a reverse proxy:
This architecture provides security hardening, better performance, and professional-grade infrastructure.
Use tools like Termius for secure SSH access to your VPS, making it easy to run PM2 commands remotely, monitor application health, and troubleshoot issues from any device.
PM2 integrates with DevOps automation and CI/CD pipelines, supporting deployment systems for provisioning and updating applications across multiple servers. Combined with Git integration, PM2 enables continuous deployment where code changes automatically deploy to production with zero downtime.
Whether you're building with traditional Node.js frameworks or modern AI-powered tools like Bolt.new or Cursor, PM2 ensures your applications run reliably in production.
Ideal for:
PM2 is free and open-source with over 42,000 GitHub stars, making it the trusted choice for developers worldwide who need production-grade process management without the complexity of enterprise solutions.
PM2 is a production-grade process manager for Node.js applications that keeps your apps running continuously, automatically restarts them if they crash, and provides built-in load balancing through cluster mode. You need PM2 for VPS deployments because it ensures maximum uptime, handles process monitoring, manages application logs, and enables zero-downtime deployments—essential features that Node.js doesn't provide natively.
Install PM2 globally on your VPS by running 'npm install pm2@latest -g' in your terminal. After installation, start your Node.js application with 'pm2 start app.js'. To ensure PM2 restarts your applications after server reboots, run 'pm2 startup' to generate a startup script, then 'pm2 save' to save your current process list. PM2 works on Linux, macOS, and Windows with all Node.js versions 12.X and above.
PM2 cluster mode spawns multiple instances of your Node.js application across all CPU cores and automatically load-balances traffic between them. Enable it with 'pm2 start app.js -i max' where 'max' uses all available cores. This can increase application throughput by 10x on multi-core servers because Node.js is single-threaded by default, meaning a single instance can only use one CPU core. Cluster mode unlocks your server's full processing power.
Use 'pm2 reload app-name' instead of 'pm2 restart' to achieve zero-downtime deployments. The reload command restarts worker processes sequentially, ensuring at least one instance is always available to handle incoming requests. This prevents connection drops and maintains continuous service availability during code updates. For multiple applications, use 'pm2 reload ecosystem.config.js' to reload all apps defined in your configuration file.
PM2 is completely free and open-source under the AGPL-3.0 license with over 42,000 GitHub stars and 100 million downloads. The core CLI tool has no costs and includes all essential features like clustering, monitoring, and log management. PM2 offers optional paid enterprise features through PM2 Plus for advanced monitoring dashboards, metrics, and alerting, but the free version is production-ready and sufficient for most developers and startups.
View real-time logs with 'pm2 logs' for all apps or 'pm2 logs app-name' for specific applications. Use 'pm2 monit' to open an interactive monitoring dashboard showing CPU usage, memory consumption, and process status. Logs are stored in '/root/.pm2/logs' by default. Install 'pm2 install pm2-logrotate' to enable automatic log rotation and prevent logs from consuming all disk space. You can also use 'pm2 list' to see all running processes with their status and resource usage.
PM2 is far more advanced than Forever with 2.4 million weekly npm downloads versus Forever's 97,000. PM2 offers cluster mode for load balancing, zero-downtime reloads, ecosystem configuration files, advanced monitoring, and active development. Forever is a lightweight tool that simply keeps processes running but lacks clustering, sophisticated monitoring, and is no longer actively maintained. For production VPS deployments, PM2 is the modern standard while Forever is considered outdated.
Yes, PM2 provides 'pm2-runtime' specifically designed for Docker containers. Use 'pm2-runtime start ecosystem.config.js' as your container's entrypoint instead of 'pm2 start' to run PM2 in foreground mode, which Docker requires. This gives you both container portability and PM2's advanced Node.js process management features like clustering and graceful shutdowns. Many developers use PM2 inside Docker containers deployed to VPS providers like DigitalOcean or Hetzner for optimal production setups.
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