We understand it’s challenging to create an ideal tech stack for a robust and secure digital solution. There is a varied range of factors such as programming language, frameworks, and tools to impact the efficiency of an application. This makes it vital to choose the right tech stack at the very start of the development phase. The one stack that we are going to cover in today’s article is NodeJS.
When it comes to developing messengers, streaming services, eCommerce sites and many more, the majority of established enterprises prefer to hire NodeJS developers.
However, many product owners and startups are still in a dilemma of why and when to use NodeJS for their projects. How about we solve those dilemmas first? Let’s start.
Why is NodeJS considered one of the best environments for App development?
NodeJS is not just limited to being a framework; it is an independent runtime environment based on Chrome’s V8 Javascript engine. This exhibits that the technology can quickly execute an application code itself without being dependent on the browser or operating system type.
This makes NodeJS a standalone application on any machine, which is why it is considered one of the best environments to create apps.
Apart from this, NodeJS comprises other outstanding features. Some of the significant ones are mentioned below:
JavaScript for backend development
With the help of JavaScript for the frontend and backend of the app, developers can easily connect the two layers with a minimum number of errors while merging the code. To use JS with NodeJS, you can utilize the TypeScript package.
Single-threaded non-blocking Input/Output
This single operation model of NodeJS allows the system to execute operations asynchronously. NodeJS simply proceeds with other requests instead of waiting for I/O operations to complete. This helps in quick loading, and as a result, the applications have a higher production capacity. Through this model, your app will be able to handle concurrent client requests without any delay.
NPM (Node Package Manager)
The package manager for Node contains icons from simple libraries to established frameworks and more than 600,000 open source packages. Besides, you can develop a better structure and organize codes effectively with a wide variety of packages.
Event-driven structure and sockets
The non-blocking and event-driven architecture of NodeJS is super compatible with sockets and speedifies the development activity.
A socket mechanism is a client or server that can easily update and exchange data with other servers when connected to a particular group. This feature is super helpful for streaming services and chat rooms.
Moreover, NodeJS shows a varied range when it comes to app development. This variety can be seen with apps like Netflix, Groupon, Yahoo, PayPal, Uber, Skype, Trello, etc.
We are coming to our next question: when to use NodeJS?
NodeJS is easy to scale, a powerful and lightweight environment that specializes in building efficient applications. But what kind of applications can be a business success with NodeJS?
Let’s find out:
Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things is basically an ecosystem of different automated digital machines and computer devices that exchange information without any manual interference. This technology is broadly used in various domains and industries. Some of the prominent examples include:
- Retail analytics and logistics
- Connected cars
- Agriculture automation
- Healthcare automation
- Smart houses and cities and many others
Building an ecosystem of devices using NodeJS can be a brilliant execution. NodeJs can handle multiple requests and process the system accordingly without any downtime. Moreover, NodeJS servers can store massive data and can be integrated with single broad controllers.
Real-Time Apps
NodeJS is ideally suited for building social networking applications, instant messengers, collaboration tools, streaming sites etc. Since all the mentioned apps have one common feature to transmit audio, video, text and live data with face-to-face interaction, NodeJS is ideal for real-time flows.
Single Page Applications (SPAs)
An SPA is a single page on a browser that dynamically keeps changing its data. These sorts of applications do not require loading an entire page to display data to the user. They only exhibit the information relevant to the user, so they load much faster than regular websites.
Apps with microservices architecture:
NodeJS can develop any application based on microservices architecture. Usually, this architecture model is used to build large scale enterprise applications with complex requirements. Hence, NodeJS can help with scalability and simplifying the overall modular structure. You can use NodeJS frameworks such as Express.JS and Koa.js for microservices architecture.
Conclusion
NodeJS is a prevalent and preferable backend development environment that facilitates application development for all kinds of channels and enterprises. With this being said, like any other technology, NodeJS too, has its own set of limitations. This is why we will recommend you to hire dedicated NodeJS developers for a smoother run.
