This is much more powerful than forever. It is a higher level tool. Forever is just here to make your script start again after a crash. This looks like a complete production deployment tool.

And it seems great.

One of the problems newcomers face when starting with node is the deployment of apps. Currently, if you try to search for "the right way", you will find many different methods ranging from custom scripts, modifying your application in some way, to external tools like upstart and monit. Of course, if you use a PaaS solution like heroku, cloudfoundry or similar, some of this problems go away.

All this deployment possibilities are great, in their own way. Pm2 is not here to replace them. It is here to give you a good production ready solution without much hassle. You want to publish your app? Use pm2. If you are facing a larger project, with many special details, then you might consider a custom solution for deployment.

Personally, I am planning to try this out for various smaller apps that need to be up 'n running, but don't have time to setup proper production environments and maintain all those environments.