Node V8 max-old-space-size

node-v8-max-old-space-size.md

Node V8 Option max-old-space-size

Command line

node --help --v8-options | grep -B 1 -A 1 max-old-space
        type: bool  default: false
  --max-old-space-size (max size of the old space (in Mbytes))
        type: size_t  default: 0

"Old space" is the biggest and most configurable section of V8's managed (aka garbage-collected) heap (i.e. where the JavaScript objects live), and the --max-old-space-size flag controls its maximum size. As memory consumption approaches the limit, V8 will spend more time on garbage collection in an effort to free unused memory. If heap memory consumption (i.e. live objects that the GC cannot free) exceeds the limit, V8 will crash your process (for lack of alternative), so you don't want to set it too low. Of course, if you set it too high, then the additional heap usage that V8 will allow might cause your overall system to run out of memory (and either swap or kill random processes, for lack of alternative). In summary, on a machine with 2GB of memory I would probably set --max-old-space-size to about 1.5GB to leave some memory for other uses and avoid swapping.

• Source Stackoverflow

Setting

export NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=8192

References

• Can we document --max_old_space_size or is it deprecated?
• memory limit in Node.js (and chrome V8)
• NodeJS Documentation
• Add max-old-space-size to npmrc #1783