Is superuser the same as root?

Google hits inform that sudo means super user do as I read this SO post here.

I just wanted to verify that when I do

sudo node my_node_program

that I am running the program as the root user.

Does

superuser === root

After some research, Apple states that root is a superuser, which implies that superuser is a group and root is a user in the group.

See support.apple.com.

Seems like everyone is blurring the terms / concepts together.

Yes, as a general rule, root and superuser are the same; "root" is a/the name typically given to a user with full system privileges on a Unix type system.

It is technically possible for other users/accounts to have the same level of access. It's purely semantics, but I guess some people call these accounts "superuser accounts" (which describes the account type and access), while others call the accounts "root accounts", which refers to accounts that have the same access as root - i.e. everything.

BTW, SUDO does not mean super user

SUDO is a mechanism to elevate/change privileges. It is possible to use SUDO to elevate a normal account to superuser privileges, but it can also be used to provide more limited access, e.g. allowing a user to run stuff as another user, which is typically a lot more limited then superuser. (For example, a user might use sudo to run something as the web server user, which would allow them to access resources they normally don't have access to, but it would not allow them to modify security permissions or access stuff which only the root account/super user account should have access to.)

Superuser is the generic term to refer to the user account used for system administration. That means that the superuser has the ability to perform privileged operations such as creating/deleting user accounts. Please note that the actual name and implementation of the superuser account vary between operating systems.

In Unix-like operating systems (macOS, GNU/Linux, BSD, etc.), the superuser is the account whose UID (user identifier) is zero, no matter how it is named. In most of these OSes, it's named root by convention.

So, while superuser and root can be used interchangeably in most Unix-like OSes, they don't hold the same meaning.

"The superuser" is often the description of a role in the security model that grants all permissions.

Historically the login / username associated with the role of superuser is root on UNIX-like operating systems like MacOS (and for instance "Administrator" on MS Windows).

Is superuser the same as root?

Yes, for all intents and purposes running a program "as the superuser" or "as root" is the same and you will be able to do things you could not do as "regular" user (such as for instance starting services that listen to reserved ports in the 1-1024 range, creating new users and other system management tasks. )

I just wanted to verify that when I do

sudo node my_node_program

that I am running the program as the root user.

As the manual states (check with man sudo ) running sudo without specifying a user using the optional -u [username|#uid-number] argument, will default to running the command as root.