Hit a wall trying to run PM2 within Jenkins on a Windows machine 😅 After testing PM2, Forever, NSSM, and Task Scheduler, it’s clear that Windows isn’t PM2’s playground. Sharing this to help anyone facing the same CI/CD challenge 💡
Hello Developers,
During my recent CI/CD pipeline implementation using Jenkins on a Windows environment, I attempted to integrate PM2 as a background process manager for a Node.js application. Despite successfully installing PM2 and validating it via CLI, I encountered issues running it persistently within the Jenkins pipeline.
The process did not behave as expected — PM2 failed to run in the background through Jenkins, and the functionality was no different than invoking node app.js directly. Extensive troubleshooting, including using npx, global installs, and different execution flags (--no-daemon, etc.), did not resolve the issue.
I also explored potential Jenkins plugins for PM2 integration but confirmed that no native or community-supported plugins are currently available.
As a result, I evaluated alternative Node.js process managers that support Windows environments:
- Forever – lightweight but lacks advanced features like monitoring and clustering.
- NSSM (Non-Sucking Service Manager) – effective for converting scripts to Windows services, though limited in logs and ecosystem integration.
- Windows Task Scheduler – native but lacks real-time monitoring and isn't CI/CD friendly.
Unfortunately, none of the alternatives offer the robustness and features of PM2, particularly in CI/CD pipelines running on Windows.
I’m sharing this update for awareness and future reference. If there’s a more effective service/process manager that supports background execution for Node.js apps within Jenkins on Windows, I’m open to exploring it and sharing further findings.
Here is a snapshot of it
Thanks,
Horla (Jahmeeu-Cloud)
Cloud & DevOps Engineer
