When you decide to start the development of your product, the big question about choosing adequate technology may arise. The choice between Node.js and PHP or between Ruby on Rails vs Node.js is not an easy one to make!
The hard thing about it is that there is no ultimate technology that is better than the others. Each technology has some pros and cons and the usage of any of them should be backed with your objectives and the challenges that you are facing. Keeping that in mind, you can choose the technology that actually answers your needs.
When we talk about challenges and objectives, we may consider:
- Time expectations, since there are some technologies that could accelerate the process of development.
- Potential growth, as there are technologies easier to scale.
- Performance. some technologies could perform faster and better in certain situations. Node.js, for example, is said to be the best one to develop single page apps.
Let’s take a look at what Node.js development has to offer.
What is Node.js?
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment and it’s built on one of the fastest engines Chrome’s V8. Thanks to these two factors, Node.js is able to demonstrate really high runtime speed giving much faster coding experiences to the programmers. And that makes Node.js apps faster to develop and helps them serve the same amount of traffic with less hardware.
Who is using Node.js?
The growing popularity of Node.js proves its usability. The 2018 Node.js User Survey Report states that three-quarters of more than 1600 participants are planning to switch to Node.js or to increase their use of Node.js over the next 12 months.
It’s not a coincidence some of the big players already switched to Node.js: Netflix, Paypal, Uber, LinkedIn, Twitter, just to mention some of them.
Pros of Node.js:
- It is all JavaScript. The same language on client and server side makes Node.js applications faster than the ones that utilize different languages. It is definitely a good solution to integrate both front- and back- end in JavaScript!
- It’s able to handle multiple requests simultaneously, making it a perfect match for real-time web apps.
- Node.js can be broken down into microservices and also allows convenient data exchange between the client and the server. This gave it the ability to be highly scalable! If you are expecting to get more and more users, scalability must be taken into account.
- Node.js is constantly growing. Not only does it have one of the biggest open-source libraries available but a new version is released every 6 months.
- As Node.js uses stream modules, it’s good for handling large amounts of data.
- It requires a relatively small amount of computing resources.
Cons of Node.js:
- No multithreading meaning no execution of multiple requests simultaneously. When implemented correctly this con can be reverted.
- It has an unstable API due to changes in frequent intervals. When this happens, developers need to make some changes in the existing code base to make it compatible with the latest version of the Node.js API.
- Considering Node.js some time ago was a new technology it lacks maturity which means that some packages in the npm registry have not been documented yet.
- Node.js could be more vulnerable to certain threats due to the fact that is being executed server-side, the use of third-party components may result in additional risk. Nevertheless is secure when developed with care and subject to the best practices.
How to choose the right technology for your product?
When looking for a technology to start your web app development always choose the technology according to your needs and challenges. It’s really not about what is trendy.
Whenever you need to have a fast, lightweight scalable app, Node.js c.
If you are looking for a single page application, real-time web apps like collaboration tools, games, chats, or if your app is going to handle big amounts of data, Node.js development will be a good option for you.
