I've had way, way, way more problems deploying Node on all the various and fragmented *nix distros than Windows, since none of them match the dev environment 1:

I've had way, way, way more problems deploying Node on all the various and fragmented *nix distros than Windows, since none of them match the dev environment 1:1 either. As a matter of fact, just setting up Node on my dev machines is way simpler and easier on Windows when compared with Mac or Linux. It's the same on every Windows box - download the Node.js installer, run it. Done. Meanwhile on Linux and Mac I have to jump through hoops and deal with things like package managers not being up to date, Brew getting broken after updates, lack of standards for installing apps, installs just not working, no easy upgrade path, etc. Honestly, if I have to type out any commands to install stuff then the situation is already fucked. Commands that I don't run very often are subject to being forgotten. Then when I go to do an update, I have to remember how I installed it in the first place or I have to find some tool to completely clean it off my system (or I have to use Node to update itself with something like https://github.com/tj/n https://github.com/tj/n, which was invented for this exact situation.)