Use nvm to install Node.js, not Homebrew

In most of the answers, the recommended way to install nvm is to use Homebrew.

Don't do this.

On nvm's Github Readme is clearly says:

Homebrew installation is not supported. If you have issues with homebrew-installed nvm, please brew uninstall it, and install it using the instructions below, before filing an issue.

Use the following method instead

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.1/install.sh | bash

The script clones the nvm repository to ~/.nvm and adds the source line to your profile (~/.bash_profile, ~/.zshrc, ~/.profile, or ~/.bashrc).

And then use nvm to install node. For example to install latest LTS version do:

nvm install 16

Clean and hassle free. It will set this as your default Node.js version as well so you should be all set.

I'm using n (Node version management)

You can install it in two ways

brew install n

or

npm install -g n

You can switch between different version of node and io. Here's an example from my current env when I call n without params:

$ n

  io/3.3.1
  node/0.12.7
  node/4.0.0
  node/5.0.0
ο node/5.10.1 

I'm super late to this but I didn't like the other answers

Installing Homebrew

For brew run

"$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Installing node & npm

You SHOULD NOT use brew to install node and npm.

I've seen a few places suggested that you should use Homebrew to install Node (like alexpods answer and in this Team Treehouse blog Post) but installing this way you're more prone to run into issues as npm and brew are both package managers and you should have a package manager manage another package manager this leads to problems, like this bug offical npm issues Error: Refusing to delete: /usr/local/bin/npm or this Can't uninstall npm module on OSX

You can read more on the topic in DanHerbert's post Fixing npm On Mac OS X for Homebrew Users, where he goes on to say

Also, using the Homebrew installation of npm will require you to use sudo when installing global packages. Since one of the core ideas behind Homebrew is that apps can be installed without giving them root access, this is a bad idea.

For Everything else

I'd use npm; but you really should just follow the install instruction for each modules following the directions on there website as they will be more aware of any issue or bug they have than anyone else

If you have previously installed node using brew, then you will have a bunch of extra files that you should clean up before installing node "the right way". Plus, I had to add a few settings to my startup script to make things work smoothly.

I wrote a script to make this easy.

# filename:  install-nvm-npm-node
# author:    Lex Sheehan
# purpose:   To cleanly install NVM, NODE and NPM
# dependencies:  brew

NOW=$(date +%x\ %H:%M:%S)
CR=$'\n'
REV=$(tput rev)
OFF=$(tput sgr0)
BACKUP_DIR=$HOME/backups/nvm-npm-bower-caches/$NOW
MY_NAME=$(basename $0)
NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL=$1
if [ "$NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL" == "" ]; then
    NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL=v0.12.2
fi
if [ "`echo "$NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL" | cut -c1-1`" != "v" ]; then
    echo """$CR""Usage:   $ $MY_NAME <NODE_VERSION_TO_INSALL>"
    echo "Example: $ $MY_NAME v0.12.1"
    echo "Example: $ $MY_NAME $CR"
    exit 1
fi
echo """$CR""First, run:  $ brew update"
echo "Likely, you'll need to do what it suggests."
echo "Likely, you'll need to run: $ brew update$CR"
echo "To install latest node version, run the following command to get the latest version:  $ nvm ls-remote"
echo "... and pass the version number you want as the only param to $MY_NAME. $CR"
echo "Are you ready to install the latest version of nvm and npm and node version $NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL ?$CR"
echo "Press CTL+C to exit --or-- Enter to continue..."
read x

echo """$REV""Uninstalling nvm...$CR$OFF"
# Making backups, but in all likelyhood you'll just reinstall them (and won't need these backups)
if [ ! -d "$BACKUP_DIR" ]; then 
    echo "Creating directory to store $HOME/.nvm .npm and .bower cache backups: $BACKUP_DIR"
    mkdir -p $BACKUP_DIR
fi 
set -x
mv $HOME/.nvm   $BACKUP_DIR  2>/dev/null
mv $HOME/.npm   $BACKUP_DIR  2>/dev/null
mv $HOME/.bower $BACKUP_DIR  2>/dev/null
{ set +x; } &>/dev/null

echo "$REV""$CR""Uninstalling node...$CR$OFF"
echo "Enter your password to remove user some node-related /usr/local directories"
set -x
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node_modules
rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node
rm -rf /usr/local/include/node
rm -rf /usr/local/include/node_modules
rm /usr/local/bin/npm
rm /usr/local/lib/dtrace/node.d
rm -rf $HOME/.node
rm -rf $HOME/.node-gyp
rm /opt/local/bin/node
rm /opt/local/include/node
rm -rf /opt/local/lib/node_modules
rm -rf /usr/local/Cellar/nvm
brew uninstall node 2>/dev/null
{ set +x; } &>/dev/null

echo "$REV""$CR""Installing nvm...$CR$OFF"

echo "++brew install nvm"
brew install nvm 
echo '$(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh'
source $(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh

echo "$REV""$CR""Insert the following line in your startup script (ex: $HOME/.bashrc):$CR$OFF"
echo "export NVM_DIR=\"\$(brew --prefix nvm)\"; [ -s \"\$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh\" ] && . \"\$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh\"$CR"
NVM_DIR="$(brew --prefix nvm)"

echo """$CR""Using nvm install node...$CR"
echo "++ nvm install $NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL"
nvm install $NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL
NODE_BINARY_PATH="`find /usr/local/Cellar/nvm -name node -type d|head -n 1`/$NODE_VER_TO_INSTALL/bin"
echo "$REV""$CR""Insert the following line in your startup script (ex: $HOME/.bashrc) and then restart your shell:$CR$OFF"
echo "export PATH=\$PATH:$NODE_BINARY_PATH:$HOME/.node/bin"

echo """$CR""Upgrading npm...$CR"
echo '++ install -g npm@latest'
npm install -g npm@latest
{ set +x; } &>/dev/null
echo "$REV""$CR""Insert following line in your $HOME/.npmrc file:$OFF"
echo """$CR""prefix=$HOME/.node$CR"
echo "Now, all is likley well if you can run the following without errors:  npm install -g grunt-cli$CR"
echo "Other recommended global installs: bower, gulp, yo, node-inspector$CR"

I wrote a short article here that details why this is "the right way".

If you need to install iojs, do so using nvm like this:

nvm install iojs-v1.7.1

To install brew, just see its home page.

See alexpods answer for the rest.

You should install node.js with nvm, because that way you do not have to provide superuser privileges when installing global packages (you can simply execute "npm install -g packagename" without prepending 'sudo').

Brew is fantastic for other things, however. I tend to be biased towards Bower whenever I have the option to install something with Bower.

Here's what I do:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.20.0/install.sh | bash
cd / && . ~/.nvm/nvm.sh && nvm install 0.10.35
. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh && nvm alias default 0.10.35

No Homebrew for this one.

nvm soon will support io.js, but not at time of posting: https://github.com/creationix/nvm/issues/590

Then install everything else, per-project, with a package.json and npm install.

I agree with noa -- if you need to have multiple versions of node, io.js then brew is not the appropriate solution.

You can help beta-test io.js support in nvm: https://github.com/creationix/nvm/pull/616

If you just want io.js and are not switching versions, then you can install the binary distribution of io.js from https://iojs.org/dist/v1.0.2/iojs-v1.0.2-darwin-x64.tar.gz ; that includes npm and you will not need nvm if you are not switching versions.

Remember to update npm after installing: sudo npm install -g npm@latest

For install with zsh and Homebrew:

brew install nvm  <=== This is not recommended by NVM. They want to run their shell script instead

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.1/install.sh | bash

Then Add the following to ~/.zshrc or your desired shell configuration file:

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
. "/usr/local/opt/nvm/nvm.sh"

Then install a node version and use it.

nvm install 7.10.1
nvm use 7.10.1

2021 Update

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.37.2/install.sh | bash

Troubleshooting for MAC:

Since macOS 10.15, the default shell is zsh and nvm will look for .zshrc to update, none is installed by default. Create one with touch ~/.zshrc and run the install script again.

If you use bash, the previous default shell, run touch ~/.bash_profile to create the necessary profile file if it does not exist.

You might need to restart your terminal instance or run . ~/.nvm/nvm.sh. Restarting your terminal/opening a new tab/window, or running the source command will load the command and the new configuration.

You have previously used bash, but you have zsh installed. You need to manually add these lines to ~/.zshrc and run . ~/.zshrc.

An alternative not mentioned here is nodenv. It uses node-build under the hood, which is what other multi-tool-version-managers like asdf also use. Nodenv has plugins that enhance its features and I suggest at least adding the nodenv-aliases plugin, which will nicely create aliases for the major and major.minor versions of node installed.

The full setup goes like:

$ brew install nodenv
$ nodenv init -
... follow the instructions printed out and restart your shell

$ git clone https://github.com/nodenv/nodenv-aliases.git $(nodenv root)/plugins/nodenv-aliases
$ nodenv install --list
18.20.7
20.18.3
22.14.0
23.9.0
...
$ nodenv install 18.20.7
...
Installing node-v18.20.7-darwin-arm64...
Installed node-v18.20.7-darwin-arm64 to /path/to/.nodenv/versions/18.20.7

18 => 18.20.7
18.20 => 18.20.7
$ nodenv global 18
$ node --version
v18.20.7

Note that since Oct 3, 2015 and until the time of writing, the caveat of the nvm formula in homebrew state:

Please note that upstream has asked us to make explicit managing nvm via Homebrew is unsupported by them and you should check any problems against the standard nvm install method prior to reporting.