Install npm-check-updates with Homebrew, Nix, pacman

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• ncu
• npm-check-updates

Project history

The project's core behavior has stayed focused: compare project dependency declarations with registry versions, preserve the user's version-range style where possible, and write the package file only when asked with -u/--upgrade. The README describes support for npm, yarn, pnpm, deno, and bun, plus CLI and module usage.

By 2026 the project had a large option surface for dependency sections, registries, JSON output, workspaces, interactive upgrades, owner-change reporting, and doctor mode. The npm registry metadata consulted for this batch reported 532 published versions and latest version 22.2.9 published on 2026-06-28.

Adoption history

ncu is a mainstream utility in JavaScript dependency maintenance because it covers a workflow that npm outdated and npm update do not fully replace: reviewing and changing declared ranges in package.json before reinstalling. The GitHub metadata consulted for this batch reported over 10k stars, and the package is available through npm, Homebrew, Nix, and Arch.

npm's public downloads API reported 3,121,600 downloads for npm-check-updates from 2026-05-30 through 2026-06-28 and 31,701,760 downloads from 2025-06-29 through 2026-06-28. Homebrew analytics reported 4,290 formula installs over its 365-day window.

How it is used

Package maintainers use ncu as a review step: run ncu to see available upgrades, inspect changelogs or use output formats such as repo/time/group, then run ncu -u followed by the package manager install command to update the lockfile. Its doctor mode is aimed at the more cautious path: iteratively install upgrades and run tests to isolate breaking updates.

Its practical role is especially visible in projects that do not want an automated bot to make every dependency decision. It gives humans a terse dependency diff, lets them filter by dependency type or package name, and supports alternative package managers while still centering package.json.

Why package nerds care

npm-check-updates is one of the standard 'dependency hygiene' tools in the Node ecosystem: small enough to use by hand, scriptable enough for CI or release chores, and independent of any one package manager's built-in update semantics.

Timeline

• 2013-09-07: GitHub repository and npm package created.
• 2026-06-28: npm registry metadata reports version 22.2.9 published.
• 2026-05-30 to 2026-06-28: npm downloads API reports 3,121,600 downloads.

Related projects

• npm outdated
• npm update
• Renovate
• Dependabot
• yarn
• pnpm
• bun
• deno

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/raineorshine/npm-check-updates
• https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-month/npm-check-updates
• https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-year/npm-check-updates
• https://formulae.brew.sh/api/formula/npm-check-updates.json
• https://github.com/raineorshine/npm-check-updates
• https://registry.npmjs.org/npm-check-updates