⚙️ Watt 3 vs PM2: Are They the Same Thing?

Watt 3 vs PM2: Are They the Same Thing?

Recently, Platformatic introduced Watt 3, a new Node.js runtime that brings built-in multithreading and process management.

But developers keep asking — is it the same as PM2?

Let’s compare them.

PM2 in a Nutshell

PM2 is a process manager — an external daemon that:

• Keeps your app alive if it crashes

• Runs it across multiple CPU cores (clustering)

• Manages logs, monitoring, and restarts

• Integrates with startup scripts and CI/CD

You can think of it as the systemd of Node.js.

What Watt 3 Does

Watt 3 takes a different approach. It’s a Node.js application server that:

• Handles multiple threads internally

• Automatically recovers crashed workers

• Scales without explicit clustering code

• Focuses on developer experience rather than infrastructure setup

It’s like having built-in multithreading inside Node, without PM2’s external daemon.

The Key Difference

Feature	PM2	Watt 3
Process supervision	✅ External	✅ Internal
Multithreading	⚙️ via cluster mode	🧠 Native threading
CLI / monitoring tools	✅ Yes	⚠️ Limited
OS-level daemon	✅ Yes	❌ No
Restart on crash	✅	✅
Maturity	⭐ Established	🚀 Emerging

Can They Work Together?

Absolutely. You can run Watt 3 under PM2:

pm2 start watt-app.js --name "watt-service"