Positive and Negative Aspects of Node.js Web Development

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Positive and Negative Aspects of Node.js Web
Development
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Introduction

• Choosing the technology stack for an application
  can be quite a challenge, as many factors affect
  the effectiveness of technologies.
• When it comes to developing social media apps,
  messengers, and streaming services, many
  developers choose Node.js. But why is it
  considered one of the best tools for creating
  such platforms?
• In this article, well look at the pros and cons
  of this technology, sort out whether Node.js web
  development, for which projects it should be
  used, and if it works for you.

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What is Node.js?

• Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that
  runs on the V8 engine and executes JS code
  outside web browsers. To put it simply, Node.js
  adds a backend part to the full frontend
  language, which allows developers to create not
  only websites but also scalable web apps that
  dont require using a browser. Node.js is
  open-source, lightweight, and fast.
• The release of Node.js allowed JavaScript to move
  from being a scripting language to becoming a
  programming language. It also gained extreme
  popularity among programmers and especially
  startups. They saw the advantages of JavaScript
  tech stack in its speed, the interaction between
  frontend and backend devs, and relatively low
  training and overall project costs, which can be
  further reduced if you have a full-stack JS
  engineer in your team.

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Node.js vs JavaScript what are the
differences?

• JS is a programming language, while Node.js means
  a runtime environment.
• JS is used for frontend development, while
  Node.js is intended for the backend
• JS code can only be run in browsers, while
  Node.js allows us to run it outside browsers.

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• Node.js pros
• Asynchronous programming
• Thanks to the asynchronous I/O model, its
  possible to process new requests instead of
  waiting for the completion of the previous ones.
  As a result, the main pros of web application
  development with Node.js is that they have higher
  performance and can handle more simultaneous
  requests than applications created using a
  multithreading model.
• Execution speed
• In terms of web apps, speed of execution refers
  to the time it takes to process a request on the
  server and generate a response to the client.
  Node.js is fast thanks to its asynchronous nature
  and the V8 engine.

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• Scalability
• When your business starts growing, the
  application needs to be scaled to fit the new
  requirements. Node.js allows us to use
  microservice architecture to divide the app into
  smaller parts this way, you can scale the app
  up or down whenever you need it.
• Fullstack JavaScript
• Node.js is a great technology if you plan to use
  a JS-based tech stack. This way its possible to
  use one language for both the server and the
  client side of a web app.
• Easy to learn
• The main prerequisite for Node.js is learning
  JavaScript. If a developer already knows JS, it
  would take less time and effort to learn Node.js
  than to learn a backend technology based on a
  completely different programming language.

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• Node.js cons
• Unstable API
• Frequent API changes are probably one of the most
  crucial drawbacks of Node.js. Many changes have
  been made to its current version of API, and not
  all of these changes are backward compatible.
• Limitations of JavaScript
• Node.js cant process very high computational
  intensive tasks. Since the runtime is based on
  JavaScript, it was designed to be
  single-threaded. As we said earlier, the
  technology prioritizes incoming requests, which
  is good for light tasks, but heavy tasks slow
  down the work.
• If youre interested React Native framework,
  check out our other article for more information.

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• What is Node.js used for?
• Real-time applications
• Real-time apps transmit live text, audio, and
  video data these are social media apps,
  streaming platforms, messengers, and more. Such
  apps require speed and scalability, thats why
  Node.js is a good option for developing them.
• IoT applications
• The Internet of Things is an ecosystem of various
  automated devices and sensors that can exchange
  data with each other without human intervention.
• Single page applications
• A single-page app is a page in a browser that
  stores dynamically changing data. SPAs load much
  faster than regular websites and can
  significantly improve the user experience
  especially when users have a low-speed internet
  connection.

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• Famous projects built with Node.js
• Paypal The company moved the app from Java to
  JSNode.js. The development took two times less
  time than it did with Java. Node.js also helped
  them to establish interaction between the browser
  and the server since both sides are written in
  the same language.
• eBay Mostly, eBay had a Java-based tech stack.
  It used to take a lot of resources and time to
  generate and convert data. To improve user
  experience and to make the code maintainable and
  scalable, they switched to Node.js.
• Netflix Back in 2015, the company used Java on
  the backend and JavaScript on the frontend. Then
  they decided to migrate to Node.js to have a
  common language for both sides of the app the
  backend and the frontend. The platform has
  improved its performance now the pages load
  within seconds.

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• Is Node.js the right technology for your project?
• In software development, there are specific cases
  when technologies perform best. node js
  development services is a powerful tool tailored
  to execute particular tasks.
• Its well-suitable for developing real-time apps,
  SPAs, microservice architecture, and IoT apps.
  However, misusing Node.js and ignoring its
  characteristics can lead to big problems in the
  project.