Node.js ia a platform for building fast, scalable application using JavaScript. Visual Studio IDE not build in support for Node.js.

NTVS is a free, open source plugin that turns Visual Studio into a Node.js IDE.

NTVS supports Editing, Intellisense, Profiling, npm, TypeScript, Debugging locally and remotely (Windows/MacOS/Linux), as well Azure Web Sites and Cloud Service.

Features of NTVS 1.0

• Free and open source
• Powerful Intellisence
• NPM Integration
• Intelligent code completion
• Advanced debugging and profiling
• Integration with other Visual Studio features and 3 rd party tools
• Node.js, io.js, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, and JSON support

Project templates – You can use built-in templates in visual studio. And you can use scaffolding tools to generate your project.

IntelliSense – NTVS have powerful IntelliSence.

NPM Integration – You can nstall packages from a rich user interface, explore packages and their dependencies in the npm tree view.

Interactive Window– We can see the results immediately in the Node.js Interactive Window.

Advanced debugging – NTVS have advanced featues like conditional breakpoints, tracepoints, hit counts, edit-and-continue, and cross-OS (Linux/MacOS/Windows) remote debugging.

Profiling – You can track down your performance issue by Profiling.

Unit Testing –  Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on Node.js can be use for Testing node.js application.
Learn more about Mocha –http://mochajs.org/

TypeScript integration – TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript .
TypeScript is a language which compile code into JavaScript .
NTVS support TypeScript in use with your nodejs projects.

You can learn more about TypeScript here – http://www.codeandyou.com/2015/06/introduction-of-typescript.html

Source Control Integration– You can use source control Git/TFS for your project and can track your changes easily.

Cloud Integration – Easily deploy your node application into Windows Azure Environment.
Customize your tools – Complement your experience with the many JavaScript and Node.js extensions available in the Visual Studio Gallery.

Free and open source – Node.js Tools for Visual Studio is a free and open source Visual Studio extension supported by Microsoft and the community.

Installation Video  – http://youtu.be/kIfxlMzF-3M

Project URL – https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/features/node-js-vs.aspx

Document –  You can download NTVS document from here
https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejstools/wiki

License – Apache License 2.0 (Apache)

Github – https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejstools

Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1_UqUDx2s