How do I get a Javascript runtime interpreter installed on OS X?

Node.js. It's the V8 engine + libraries + REPL.

Although Node is usually used for web/network-related applications, at its core it's just a plain JS engine and can even be used for shell scripting.

You can install it from the installer, brew or just ./configure && make from a Node.js' tarball.

There's also Rhino.


v8. Its the javascript engine used in google chrome. You have to compile it for mac OS X, though. Theres a good tutorial here.


You have two options:

  1. Use console in your Browser: Browsers such as chrome,safari, firefox come buildtin with console which are cappable of running javascript. to open open console on chrome. Press CTRL + SHIFT + J

  2. Install Nodejs: As others have pointed out, try http://nodejs.org/ using which you can run javascript in terminal app similar to irb


There is a Javascript interpreter in the JavaScriptCore framework that comes with OS X. The interpreter is called jsc and can be found at the following path:

 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaScriptCore.framework/Versions/Current/Helpers/jsc

There is a built-in function, quit(), which will exit interactive mode.

If you want to make it easier to use I suggest creating a symlink to a location in your path, e.g.:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaScriptCore.framework/Versions/Current/Helpers/jsc /usr/local/bin

This will put a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin.