Beginner's Guide to Node.js: Understanding Its Basics

Quick Overview: This article is for Business Owners, Product Owners, CTOs, Managers, and Technical leaders who are looking to learn more about Node.js, what is Node JS used for, its architecture, its pros and cons, and how it can help deliver tangible business results. We’ll begin with its basic introduction to Node.js and a brief history of its development.

“Node.js is one of the finest backend development technologies used by giant global business players, from Netflix and PayPal to LinkedIn, to build fast, high-quality applications.”

So, in this year, 2025, you might have heard a lot of buzz around Node.js. But you are not sure what it’s and its role in web app development. Or maybe you have heard people praising Node JS, and now you are wondering, is this something I am missing? Maybe you are already familiar with other backend technologies and want to understand what sets NodeJS apart.

If any of these scenarios resonate with you, you are in the right place. In this article, we will provide a beginner-friendly overview of Node.js and its business advantages. We will also talk about NodeJS architecture, Node.js functions, use cases where Node shines, and understand why organizations prefer Node.js development. Throughout this article, we will provide numerous pieces of information, allowing you to dive deeper into the subject.

Introduction

Node.js plays a crucial role in application development. You might be aware that AliExpress and eBay use Node.js as their primary backend technology. In fact, the Fortune 500 companies' top choice is Node.js vs other backend technologies.

A Statista survey shows that Node.js overtook ReactJS to become the most used web framework among software developers worldwide. According to the survey, around 42.7% of respondents reported to be using Node.js, while 40.6% were using React.js.

For better understanding, let's dive deep into the concept of Node.js, its architecture and understand whether it is worth the investment, time, and resources in an upcoming project.

“With nearly 10 million Node.js users, three in four users are planning to increase their use of Node.js in the next 12 months. Node users continue to report positive business impact, including improving developer productivity and satisfaction and lowering costs.”

What is Node.js?

The first and most important highly-search question on Google is, what is Node.js? Is Node.js a backend framework? Is Node.js a programming language? Is Node.js a library? What are Node.js development services?

Well, let’s get straight.

Node.js = Runtime Environment + JavaScript Library

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that runs web applications outside the client browser.

Node.js is a runtime backend JavaScript environment built on the Google V8 JavaScript engine that can run on Windows, Unix, macOS, and Linux OS.

Many of the Node.js basic modules are written in JavaScript. Thus, Node JS is mostly used to run real-time server applications.

With Node.js web development, you can easily implement event-driven programming methods. Moreover, Node JS offers a set of APIs that will help you interact with I/O devices. Generally, these APIs are used to develop distributed web applications and high-performance web servers. However, many large companies like Netflix, Walmart, LinkedIn, PayPal, and Uber use Node.js as their primary technology.

“Well, you must remember that NodeJS is neither a framework nor any programming language. However, it is important to understand that Node.js is neither a framework nor a library, but a runtime.”

The Node.js runtime encompasses a robust web API and a JavaScript engine capable of parsing and executing code. This unique combination empowers Node JS developers with a lightweight, flexible, and easily deployable platform. Leveraging these features will enable you to optimize and accelerate your application design effectively.

History of Node.js

Node.js was created by Ryan Dahl in 2009. First, he introduced Node.js to the community at the JS-EU conference in 2009. He stated some of the challenges with blocking on I/O and the limited possibilities offered by existing popular web servers and common coding methods.

Further, he explained how JavaScript was the perfect language for getting mainstream programmers to adopt asynchronous programming on the server.

In the end, he received a standing ovation for his insightful presentation.

Ryan Dhal’s Presentation Speaker Profile during JS-EU Conference in 2009

Surprisingly, Node.js turns out to be the most popular technology on GitHub, with 96K Stars and 3251 contributors, beating out jQuery and Ruby on Rails.

What is Node.js Architecture?

Node.js architecture uses an event-driven and non-blocking I/O model to make it more efficient and lightweight for building data-intensive and real-time applications to run across all shared devices.

Unlike conventional techniques of web serving, where a request creates a new thread only to cramp up the RAM, the Node.js architecture operates on a single thread. As a result, it supports thousands of simultaneous connections handling the event loops.

How Does Node.js Work?

A Node.js application runs seamlessly in a single process. Unlike traditional server-side programs, Node doesn’t create any new thread for every request. That’s why a Node server can handle numerous concurrent requests without dealing with thread concurrency or multithreading issues.

In addition, Node.js architecture uses a non-blocking I/O model and event-driven type, which ensures data-intensive and real-time applications run easily across all shared devices. This makes JavaScript the obvious choice for any machine language that provides the execution of super-fast code. Due to Node.js and JavaScript, codes operate faster in the server-to-client environment.

Node.js runs on the Google V8 JavaScript engine, and the Node JS platform uses a “Single-Threaded Event Loop.”

So how does Node.js handle simultaneous requests together with one single-threaded model?

Multi-threaded request response is a different architecture in the slower event loop, and it fails to handle many concurrent threads at once.

Moreover, the platform also does not maintain a similar response/request multi-threaded stateless prototype. Instead, it follows a simplified single-threaded event loop framework. According to Node.js developers, "Libuv" is an explicit library that provides the event loop mechanism. Node.js architecture and processing model has been based on JS event-based model with callback mechanism.

Node.js Use Cases: When is It Worthy to Consider Node JS?

The most significant advantage of using Node.js is being able to build enterprise app solutions that cater to the target audience in real-time. It allows you to beat the competition with unique features and attributes using NodeJS development services and solutions for business and its top related frameworks like ExpressJS, NestJS, Fastify, and more.

Here, we have identified some of the emerging industries that use Node.js as their primary technology. Moreover, the above image (loyalty matrix) represents the percentage of retention per industry.

Node.js is continuing to have a positive impact on users, particularly around developer productivity and satisfaction; when asked to describe Node.js, respondents use mostly positive terms like – “fast”, easy”, awesome”, powerful”, “flexible”, and even “fun”.

Furthermore, we have also identified some popular use cases where Node.js is used for to develop diversified applications.

Social Media Platforms: LinkedIn is the most popular social network built on Node.js. It essentially combines nodes and creates a backend for social media sites. Node.js also provides speedy routing with a V8 engine and secure authentication.

SPA (Single Page Application) Development: As single page portals, Node.js also builds dynamic websites, social networks, and mailing solutions. Moreover, the quality of asynchronous data flow on the Node.js backend makes the most promising single page application development feature.

Data Streaming Applications: OTT biggies like Netflix chose Node JS to cater to 190 countries and more than 100 million streaming hours across approximately 120 million OTT users, and still counting. It has an edge on file processing at high speed, with feather-light uploads and encodes. Many online applications and fashion e-stores encash upon this for massive video data streaming.

Chatbots: Node.js also offers advanced functionalities when it comes to chatting applications and real-time chatbots. Its key features, like intensive data, multi-user applications, heavy traffic capabilities, and multiple device compatibility, make it a popular choice for chatbots.

Node.js hits the jackpot when it is used to run across various devices, covering different paradigms in chat apps and chatbots. It becomes easier to execute the server-side event loops and push notifications commonly used in real-time apps and IMs.

IoT Application Development: Since the popularity of IoT, NodeJS has been the most preferred technology for companies to build public and private IoT solutions. The core benefit of leveraging Node JS web development for IoT is the innate ability to seamlessly process concurrent requests with thousands of actions released by several billion devices on the network.

Node.js architecture is driven by events, having asynchronous processing relevant to heavy I/O operations on the IoT networks. Moreover, it also operates on a readable and writeable channel while streaming, making it a promising platform for developing IoT.

How to Get Started with Node JS?

If you are not sure where to start with Node.js, don’t worry, we are giving you some simple steps to install Node JS on your Windows and macOS system.

You can surely skip this process if you have already Node installed on your system. Also, you can read our detailed installation guide here – Install Node JS and NPM on your system.

How to Install Node JS

Let’s start with the installation process.

On Windows

Download the Windows Installer directly from the nodejs.org website.

On macOS

Using Bash on Mac

Using Homebrew on Mac

brew install node

On Linux

On Ubuntu 18.04+ you can install Node using the following commands.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install nodejs

Once the installation is completed, check the version of NodeJS:

node –v

node --version

Best Practices to Follow for Node JS App Development

As a Node.js web development company, it’s not easy to build an application. You must consider its stability, speed, performance, and limitations. However, there are some best Node.js development practices you must follow to ensure efficiency. To make this simple, you can consult the Node.js development company or hire Node JS backend developers to achieve your dream app.

Let’s find out the best practices for Node JS application development.

1. Use NPM Init
2. Implement Asynchronous/Await Structures
3. Wrap Common Utilities as npm Package
4. Avoiding Garbage in-app
5. Use Built-in Error Handling Mechanism
6. Manage Environment Variables
7. Separating the Entire Program into Small Components
8. Use ES2015, Docker, and Promises
9. Run Parallel for Speed Optimization
10. Use Dependency Injection

“In Node, blocking operations are the root of all evil—99% of Node misuses are a direct consequence.”

Why Should You Consider Node.js?

Why choose Node.js technology for your enterprise? This is the most popular question that arises while you’re juggling multiple backend technologies. However, if you are aware of Node JS advantages and why big brands like PayPal, Netflix, and Uber have embraced Node JS web development services, you will have no hesitation in hiring Node JS development team for your next web development project.

Scalability: Node.js developers find this platform to be highly scalable, both horizontally and vertically. Whereas vertical scaling allows you to add resources to the existing nodes, the horizontal scaling feature enables you to include new nodes quickly.

In addition, Node.js development does not require a significant block on the development process, for it also performs along with other modules and microservices. Hence, startups prefer microservices development with Node.js, resulting in successful growth.

Better Performance: Google V8 engine runs Node.js. And the latest version of Node JS v.21 offers an updated v8 JavaScript engine to 11.8, and that’s what powers Node.js. It complies directly with JavaScript code straight into machine code. As a result, it is efficient and accelerates the speed of the Node.js application. Google invests heavily in this engine to constantly improve performance.

Greater Community Support: Node.js foundation was established back in 2015. It is a joint effort by incredible founders from various enterprises such as Fidelity, Microsoft, SAP, and IBM.

Many active Node JS programmers are consistently contributing to this ever-evolving community and supporting fellow developers. In addition, GitHub also supports Node.js, which makes it faster and easier to develop.

Boost Speed of Development: Node.js allows developers to speed up the web app development process with various lightweight tools. Installing NPM on your system offers innumerable solutions, libraries, and modules for creating web apps to acquire more value while investing in less effort.

Together with the NPM libraries, Node.js helps reduce errors and bugs and minimize web application size with reusable templates. Development speed influences marketing time too.

Freedom of App Development: One of the major advantages of working with Node development company is that they have the freedom to develop cross-platform applications. With various NodeJS frameworks and tools such as NW.js and Electron, developers can build cross-platform apps since they are highly compatible with all devices like desktops, laptops, and mobile. Node.js is also the best choice for IoT development solutions.

Works for Both Front-end and Back-end: Node.js is compatible with both front-end and the backend of JavaScript. Developers enjoy the accessibility and flexibility of the platform, which makes the cycle of app development more seamless and robust. Most importantly, it saves time, resources, and energy. It makes app development more convenient and ensures it is the most favored tech in business. Hence, among other backend technologies, the cost to build a NodeJS web app becomes very effective.

Excellent Ecosystem: When richness and sustainability are concerned, NPM is one word that describes it all. NPM boasts 836,000 libraries, with 10,000+ published weekly. More than 475,000 registries and packages are available with 11,000 new weekly tools. It reduces the cost and time involved in the development and marketing process.

Tech Leaders Have Already Chosen Node.js for Microservices, Now It’s Your Turn to Start a Node.js Project!

Hire Node Experts

Future of Node.js

NodeJS is the most prominent, versatile, and powerful server-side technology that has emerged as the first choice for back end developers.

Used by popular websites, including PayPal, LinkedIn, and Netflix, we can conclude that the future of Node JS looks promising with every new release.

Also, it’s clear that Node JS is the go-to choice for building high-traffic websites and real-time applications like LinkedIn.

“Finding a qualified and experienced Node.js developer today is truly a godsend for any business.”

How Can Radixweb Help You with Hiring NodeJS Developers?Node.js is efficient and effective in managing multiple task requests simultaneously. It is more cost-effective and time-efficient in handling the application traffic than most tech stacks. To leverage the full benefits and features of Node JS, you should only work with experienced and dedicated Node.js programmers.Node.js development services can be effective for startups in terms of quick and simple development process. It can also work well in a sophisticated ecosystem that leading enterprises use. Hence, if your dream idea of developing an application is something Node could fulfill, don't resist connecting with our experts.A top Node.js development company, our experienced programmers can develop custom-tailored solutions for your project, regardless of size or complexity. With 25 years of experience in the IT industry, we’ve successfully delivered more than 4200 cross-border projects and made a name for ourselves.Are you superior to the competition?If not, let us make you!