I'm pretty sure the only sane way to implement CPU intensive tasks in Node and browsers are web workers. Not sure about the state of web worker support in Node

I'm pretty sure the only sane way to implement CPU intensive tasks in Node and browsers are web workers. Not sure about the state of web worker support in Node but the resulting code should be straightforward. Even so, the speed of JavaScript is limited, so any serious number crunching will be a pain in the ass. Node and browsers are seldom used for CPU intensive tasks for now, so it's not a priority. There are alternatives that handle node's current warts elegantly, can do serious number crunching painlessly, but just don't have the cool factor.