Node.js vs. Other Frameworks in 2024: A Comparative Analysis

Node.js is a platform that appeared in 2009. Since that time, it has managed to attract a significant number of users. In this article, we’ll look at the essence of the technology and also outline the relevant competition for it (for instance, platforms such as Deno). We believe that our readers will learn how to choose high-quality Node.js development services after reviewing this material. 

Understanding Node.js

Node.js is a powerful and versatile JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 engine. It was first introduced in 2009 by Ryan Dahl and has since gained immense popularity.

Node.js offers several key features and advantages. It uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model, making it highly efficient and scalable. It enables developers to write server-side applications using JavaScript, a widely-used and easy-to-learn language. Additionally, its large package ecosystem, NPM, provides access to numerous ready-to-use modules and libraries, accelerating development.

Node.js finds extensive use in various industries. It excels in real-time applications like chat apps, gaming platforms, and collaborative tools. It is also well-suited for building APIs, microservices, and serverless applications. Notable companies such as Netflix, LinkedIn, and PayPal have embraced Node.js for its performance and flexibility.

Exploring Other Frameworks

Here are some alternatives to Node.js. Many of them also offer interesting features:

Framework 1: Express.js

Express.js is a popular and widely used web application framework for Node.js. It follows a middleware-based architecture, allowing developers to create modular and flexible applications. The framework provides a simple and intuitive API for routing, handling requests, and managing middleware, making it easy to build robust web applications. Express.js is known for its lightweight nature, resulting in high performance and low overhead. It efficiently handles concurrent requests and can be scaled horizontally to meet growing demands. The framework has a vibrant and active community that offers extensive documentation, tutorials, and a wide range of third-party modules and libraries. The ecosystem around Express.js is well-established, providing developers with the tools they need to build and maintain robust applications.

Framework 2: Deno

Deno is a secure and modern runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript, created by Ryan Dahl, the same individual who developed Node.js. Deno aims to address some of the shortcomings and security concerns of Node.js. It adopts a more secure and opinionated approach, emphasizing the use of TypeScript, built-in modules, and a secure permissions system. Deno avoids legacy APIs and implements modern JavaScript features. Leveraging the same V8 engine as Node.js, Deno offers comparable performance. It also offers built-in support for TypeScript, enabling developers to write and compile type-safe code, which can improve application performance and maintainability. While Deno is relatively new, it has been gaining traction and has an active community. The ecosystem is growing, with an increasing number of Deno-specific modules and libraries being developed, providing developers with more options and tools.

Framework 3: Nest.js

Nest.js is a progressive and modular framework for building efficient and scalable server-side applications. It leverages TypeScript and takes inspiration from Angular’s architecture. Nest.js promotes a modular and organized approach, using decorators, modules, and dependency injection. It provides a familiar structure for developers coming from an Angular background. Nest.js offers excellent performance, leveraging the underlying capabilities of Node.js. It supports horizontal scaling and can handle high loads efficiently. The use of TypeScript helps catch errors at compile-time, reducing runtime issues. Nest.js has gained significant community support, with active contributors and a growing ecosystem. It offers extensive documentation, tutorials, and a variety of community-developed modules to enhance development productivity and ease of use.

Electron vs Node.js – What are the differences?

Node.js vs Vue.js: What’s the Difference Between Them?

Benchmarking and Performance Evaluation

Benchmarking and Performance Evaluation for Node.js involves assessing its performance compared to other frameworks. Different benchmarking methodologies, such as load testing and stress testing, are used to measure factors like response time and resource utilization. Factors influencing Node.js performance include code efficiency, database interactions, caching mechanisms, and hardware infrastructure. Comparative performance analysis helps understand how Node.js performs against other frameworks in terms of speed and scalability. Real-world examples highlight Node.js success stories, such as LinkedIn, which saw improved server response time and reduced infrastructure costs after migrating to Node.js, and PayPal, which achieved a 35% reduction in response times after adopting Node.js for their applications.

Community and Industry Trends

The Node.js community is dynamic and continuously evolving. Current trends and innovations include the adoption of new features and updates, such as support for ECMAScript modules and improved performance optimizations. The community actively contributes to the growth of Node.js by developing new libraries, tools, and frameworks that enhance its capabilities. Analyzing the evolution and trends of other frameworks provides insights into the broader landscape of server-side development. Looking ahead, predictions for the future of Node.js and other frameworks include advancements in serverless computing, increased emphasis on security and scalability, and the integration of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain into the Node.js ecosystem.

Wrapping up

All in all, Node.js is a promising technology for a large number of fields. If you’re interested in applying it in your business, we recommend looking for professionals. In this respect, one of the best companies is Keenethics. Its specialists focus on Node.js knowledge, knowing how to produce high-quality products via this framework. 

TOP 7 companies using NodeJS in Production: Best Examples

What is Node.js? And Why JavaScript Is Greeting The World?

Node.JS is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment. Node used for developing a diverse variety of server tools and applications. Node.js is not a JavaScript framework, many of its basic modules are written in JavaScript and developers can write new modules in JS.

Ben Halpern cited Atwood’s Law: “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.”

Once only thought of as a “popular” framework, NodeJS is fastly becoming one of the TOP commonly used languages in coding web apps and is beginning to find its way into Enterprise solutions.

Below is a list of 6+1 big companies that have implemented the popular server-side JavaScript engine for use inside high traffic & profile production projects.

What reason are the biggest companies using Node.js for?

#1 Microsoft

Net income: ▴ $21.20 billion

Microsoft Co is working with Nodes in several Ways: offers direct integration with the Azure Platform, releasing many programs for learning Node-oriented, and Microsoft plans to create its own version of the Node engine running on the Edge Javascript engine, not in the V8 version of Chrome. Look at some ideas in this video:

#2 IBM

Net income: $11.87 billion

IBM also adopted NodeJS. Why did IBM use Node.js see in this video: Myles Borins talks about his experience with CITGM.

#3 PayPal payments

Net income: $1.4 billion

PayPal also prefers JavaScript and NodeJS for use on its web platform. For PayPal, the use of NodeJS began as a platform for creating prototypes, and later introduced into production.

The first use of NodeJS in production — it was their account overview page, one of the most downloaded. The JS team was able to build a faster and more efficient product. After that, PayPal prepared an Open-Source solution for ExpressJS called KrakenJS.

Why did PayPal choose Node.js?

#4 Cisco

Net income: ▾ $9.61 billion

Cisco Systems, Inc. is an US-based technology conglomerate headquartered in San Jose. That develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, telecommunications equipment, and other high-technology services and products. Through its numerous acquired subsidiaries, such as OpenDNS, WebEx, and Jasper, Cisco specializes into specific tech markets, such as Internet of Things, domain security, and energy management.

Look at the Cisco GitHub page to also learn more about the company’s most important systems.

#5 Netflix

Net income: $0.187 billion

Nexflix used JavaScript and NodeJS.

Why did Netflix use Node.js?

#6 Uber

Net income: ▾ -$2.8 billion

Uber has develop its driver / rider matching system on Node.js Distributed Web Architecture. Uber’s GitHub page is a good source to read more about the company’s most critical systems.

Time to learning Node.js!

Update:

+1 Capital One

Net income: $3.75 billion

Capital One Co. is the largest FinTech companies in the USA and they’re using all-in on Node.js.

The Capital One story is remarkably and I highly recommend you check out the official Node.js Foundation Case Study with Capital One. They used NodeJS and Other technology stacks to collect Big data and processing to generate personal loan proposals.

A talk by Azat Mardan that tell how/why Capital One Co. uses Node JS on this video (2015, Portland, OR):


What Lessons Can We learn From Companies That Use Node.JS

  • Node.js is being adopted by businesses because it enables them to outpace their competitors by delivering new products and features more quickly.
  • The ability of Node.js to enable full-stack developers is driving efficiencies in the enterprise.

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment written in JavaScript, the most popular programming language in the world. It’s biggest strengths are versatility, lightning fast speed of processing and high scalability.


By the way:

Along with the efficiency and simplicity of Node.js, there is also sort of ‘neighboring’ tech called AngularJS. This framework is frequently used in a bundle with Node.js. Get familiar with AngularJS and big projects where it runs — head through the link to see the best AngularJS examples (Wix, UpWork et al.).

Best Node.JS Open Source Projects

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about a new trendy technology in the world of web development. What exactly is Node.js and why did it become so popular in a short term? Is it worth to study at all?

As of lately, there is no shortage of training materials on Node.js, but most of them cover either some specific use cases or topics that are applicable even when you have a working Node.js Here and there I see comments like “I downloaded Node.js, what do I do now? “. The article will answer this question and explain what Node.js is and what the best open source projects are.

What is Node.js?

Node or Node.js is a software platform based on the V8 engine (translating JavaScript into machine code), which turns JavaScript from a highly specialized language into a general-purpose language. Node.js adds the ability of JavaScript to interact with I / O devices through its API (written in C ++), connect other external libraries written in different languages, providing calls to them from JavaScript code. Node.js is used primarily on the server. Node.js is based on event-oriented and asynchronous (or reactive) programming with non-blocking I / O.

It is important to understand that Node is not a web server. It does not do anything by itself. This is not Apache. There is no config-file, which indicates the path to the HTML-files. If you need an HTTP server, you need to write an HTTP server (using built-in libraries). Node.js is just another way to run code on your computer. This is just the environment for running JavaScript.

Reasons to use Node.js in projects

+Programs from Google, IBM, Paypal and other well-known corporations are scripted with the help of Node.js programming language. Node.js open source projects are so popular since NODE.JS processes are executed in parallel, the whole system works much faster and copes with large loads, which means stability and speed of your application.

+Another great feature of best open source Node.js projects is the ease with which you can create soft real-time systems. I mean things like Twitter, chats, bets on sports events or interfaces to IM-protocols.

+While Node.js is still very young, there is a temptation to write specifically everything that you needed. But it can be much more beneficial to use a huge selection of pre-existing command-line tools. Node is able to generate thousands of processes and work with their output data streams, which can give serious advantages to those who do not want to reinvent the wheel.

+The Node.js community is now growing at a frantic pace, attracting the best developers in the industry. This means that the Node ecosystem is also growing, it is increasingly easier to get support for free or on a commercial basis.

Most Helpful Node.JS Open Source Projects

  1. Express

Express is a minimalistic, flexible and the most popular Node.js modular framework that provides a wide set of features for web and mobile applications, being one of the best node js projects. It simplifies development and helps to build secure, modular and fast apps.

  1. Hapi

Hapi  is a framework that enables building web applications and services with reusable application logic. It will save you the time you spend on building infrastructure. The framework is continuously developed and updated by an active community, giving developers a reliable and stable tool for their projects.

  1. VSCode

VSCode is a source code editor which is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It provides built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js and has a rich ecosystem of extensions for other languages. It is updated monthly, providing developers with new upgrades and bug fixes.

  1. Electron

Electron is a framework for building native cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is an open source project maintained by GitHub that combines Node.js with Chromium and a lot of C++ to make native OS operations easier. It is compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux.

  1. ESLint

ESLint is an open source project that provides a pluggable linting utility for JavaScript. It enables identifying and reporting patterns found in ECMAScript/JavaScript code, making code more consistent and avoiding bugs.

  1. TypeScript

ESLint is a language for application-scale JavaScript that adds optional types, classes and modules to JS. It supports tools for large-scale JavaScript apps for any browser, any host and on any OS. It compiles to clean, simple, readable, standards-based JavaScript, being one of the most interesting node js projects.

  1. Chai

Chai is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be easily paired with any javascript testing framework. A developer can choose one of the several interfaces provided and also leverage plugins that have already been built.

  1. Sinon

Sinon, similarly to Chai, is a testing tool for the Node.js ecosystem. It provides standalone test spies, stubs and mocks for JavaScript.

  1. Mocha

Mocha is a JavaScript test framework running on Node.js and in the browser. It is hosted on GitHub. Mocha tests run serially, enabling flexible and precise reporting while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.

  1. Request

Request is a third party module to simplify http calls. It supports HTTPS and follows redirects by default, but you can always configure that. It provides shorthand methods, custom configurations, as well as the basics of the streaming API.

  1. Restify

Restify is a node.js module that enables creating correct REST web services. It helps build “strict” API services that are maintainable and observable.

  1. fs-extra and fs-promise

fs-extra and fs-promise are Node.js packages available in npm registry. fs-extra adds file system methods that aren’t included in the native fs module, whereas fs-promise adds support for async functions from fs-extra.

  1. simple-peer

simple-peer provides simple one-to-one WebRTC video, voice and data channels. It works both in Node and the browser. It also supports advanced options like enabling/disabling trickle ICE candidates, manual set config and constraints options.

  1. Moment

Moment is of the most popular open source projects. It uses JavaScript date library for parsing, validating, manipulating and formatting dates. It works both in the browser and in Node.js. It is very easy to customise and also offers multiple plugins developed by the community.

  1. Node inspector

Node inspector is an effective Node.js debugger interface that uses the Blink Developer Tools. It provides a wide set of powerful features that help debug Node.js code with ease.

  1. Walmart

In a nutshell, Walmart is able to serve some very sophisticated features to mobile users on the client side using Node. It’s saving mobile shoppers a ton of time by customizing content based on device type and browser capabilities.

  1. Netflix

Netflix Github is a good example of choosing the best language for the job. It is a very diverse array of many languages. If they are still Node in 2017, then the project was a good use case for the language.

  1. PayPal

Node.js at PayPal talks about their decision to start using NodeJS as a way to prototype. The company was weighing was how long the project would take, how many people it would require, how much code would need to be written and the performance. Seemed like Node.js was the best choice

  1. Uber

Dispatching systems at Uber run on Node, the server-side JavaScript platform. When a customer opens an app or visits the website to book a ride or uses APIs to see what vehicles are available, most of those systems run on Node.

  1. Pay Pal

Like many other open source projects, Node.js was introduced as a prototype platform. Together with all the qualities, the high proficiency was confirmed, so that it was decided to give it a move on the production of Pay Pal.

I hope this article will help fill the gap between downloading Node.js and developing your first small application. Node.js is an extremely powerful and flexible technology for a wide range of tasks.

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