Node.js Development: Everything You Need To Know

Do you know?

  • Node.js is used by 186,709 websites?
    • 85% of Node JS developers say they use it primarily for web app development. 43% use it for enterprise applications.
  • Node.js is the primary backend language for eBay, Ali-express?
    • Netflix and PayPal saw significant results in terms of performance?
    • The most used words for Node.js are fast, scalable, easy, powerful, etc.?
    • Node.js increases the performance by 50% and reduces the development cost by 58%?

# What more one can demand for?

Node.js has gained popularity in quite a short time. It is one of the most popular technologies to build scalable and real-time web APIs. With in-depth knowledge about Node.js, it is easy to create complex projects and web applications with front-end and back-end technologies. Using JavaScript, node.js is winning every battle and offers the highest advantages.

Let’s understand the reasons for its popularity. Let’s start with the basics:

What is Node.js?

Node.js is an open-source JavaScript runtime environment built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript Engine. With Node.js, you can effortlessly develop a fast and scalable web application.Node.js is used or backend and can be paired with JavaScript frameworks like Express, React, Vue, and many more. Full-stack node.js developers can create reliable and scalable apps using both front-end and back-end technologies

It was originally written by Ryan Dahl in 2009. During that time Apache HTTP Server was a popular web server but handling different parallel requests was difficult. To introduce scalability and easy handling of the concurrent request, Ryan Dahl created Node.js which has a non-blocking event-driven I/O model making it an excellent choice to develop robust and scalable applications.

Node.js Architecture Includes:
• Single-Threaded: It works on the single thread and avoids context switching
• Non-Blocking I/O : Here the run-time task is executed asynchronously and works on a single thread (A form of input/output processing in continuous mode before I/O gets completed.) The non-blocking I/O eliminates the need for multi-threading since the server can handle multiple requests at the same time.
• Front-End Development: The front-end of the website is what the user interacts with. It includes a UI interface, handling events, and interacting with a backend server to etch data.
• Back-end Development: The back-end of a website consists of a server, an application, and a database. It is also called client-side scripting which gives more power to the features that users interact with on the client-side.

Node.js has become the first choice for many industries like IT, Healthcare, and many more. Being simple, it is light-weight, fast, and secured for developing web applications.

However there are advantages and disadvantages of node.js which is listed below helping you to make right choice

Undeniable Reasons to Love Node.js

Let’s zero down some of the major pros of Node.js as a server-side programming language.
• Node.js offers easy scalability. Node.js Developers find it very convenient to scale horizontally as well as vertically.
• It is easier to learn and consumes less time. You can start using Node.js in the backend.
• It is used as a single programming language. Node.js full-stack developers can write both front-end and back-end using a run time environment.
• No need to hire a separate developer for backend or front-end which saves time and money.
• It uses the Google V8 JavaScript engine making it faster to implement code; thus provides enhanced performance.
• Node.js has a huge and active community that keeps on contributing to further development.
• It offers the freedom to develop apps and website from scratch
• It is easy to get the support of commonly used tools
• It handles the request simultaneously.
• Node.js is highly extensible which means you can customize and extend Node.js as per your requirements.

Node.js Disadvantages

Well, Node.js even has few drawbacks which needs to be known. Let’s discuss.
• Application Programming Interface is not stable; It keeps on changing at regular interval
• It doesn’t have a robust library system compared to the other frameworks
• It doesn’t process CPU bound task
• Many tools in the npm registry are quite poor or not well documented
• Due to the asynchronous programming model, the code becomes tedious and this programming model is more complex than linear programming.

What type of applications you can develop with Node.js?

  • Social Media Platform
    • Streaming Services
    • Real-time project collaboration tools
    • E-commerce platform
    • Single page application
    • IoT applications
    • Applications with microservice architecture.

Where Node.js shouldn’t be used?

  • Server-side web application with a relational database in the backend
    • Heavy server-side processing
    • CPU Intensive Computations

Which Companies are using Node.js?

  • LinkedIn
    • Netflix
    • Uber
    • Trello
    • PayPal
    • NASA
    • eBay
    • Medium
    • Walmart
    • Yahoo

Wrapping it up

All the above-mentioned organizations can deliver the best user experience by using Node.js. It continues to grow with its huge community including node.js developers and java-script enthusiasts. Whether you want to design or implement RESTful APIs, microservices, or database, full-stack node.js developers can do it all. On the brighter side, Node.js has proved its worth by building fast, scalable and robust applications with all modern features.