title: Do I still need babel for Node 8.9.4
body: <p>From <a href="http://node.green/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://node.green/</a> 99% of ES2015 functionality is supported by NodeJS version 8.9.4. Does this mean that I don't need babel at all anymore?</p>
  <p>Here's more details on what I'm trying to achieve:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>I'm talking only about server side code for NodeJS</li>
  <li>I want to use ES2015 features / syntax in my code.</li>
  <li>At this point, I'm not looking at ES2016 or ES2017. In other words, I'd be happy with using only ES2015.</li>
  <li>The 1% of features not available in Node 8.9.4 that Babel offers doesn't bother me either, since I'm sure the NodeJS team is working on integrating the remaining features and I'm confident that that will happen soon.</li>
  </ol>
  <p>I have heard that transpiling code on the server-side can slow down development. I'm not sure what sort of effect it has on performance.</p>
  <p>So here are my questions:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>Given what I have said above, do I still need Babel for any purpose? (If I'm not concerned about the 1% of ES2015 features that Node is yet to implement).</li>
  <li>If I still end up using Babel on the server-side, what sort of an effect will it have on development time and performance?</li>
  </ol>