Node JS Web Development

Consider yourself in a situation where you have written code for a simple browser application.

• Let’s consider it for the text parser or a mortgage calculator application. Without even thinking you wrote everything using JavaScript as everything was in the browser. You seem to be happy as the web application works very well and turns out to be very useful.
• Over time, you come up with a new project and try your hands on new features. Well, now you have the trouble of transferring the program or application to the power server. For example, you wish to integrate WhatsApp or Social Media account into your web application. And you need a server for that as well.
• Now consider this situation in a different manner. Now you would have to choose some server-side languages, like PHP or Python in order to build a web application again with the same features. But the scenario is different here, thanks to Node JS and its features of Node JS Architecture. Now, you only have to use the existing codebase and rewrite only I/O.

Bang on!

Your Node JS web application will conquer the world!

That’s the reason the introduction to Node JS in the backend development has been dominating.

And guys, this is what Node.js is.

Node JS is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that is used to execute web applications outside the client’s browser.

Although NodeJS was initially created with real-time, push-based architectures in mind, it is used for server-side programming and is primarily deployed for non-blocking, event-driven servers, such as conventional websites and back-end API services. Every browser has its own JavaScript engine. Here, Node.js is built on Google Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.

Does it sound a bit complicated?

Allow us to elaborate in simple terms.

Simply put, the entire web application or website can be executed using a unified ‘stack’. As a result, it becomes very easy for NodeJS developers to develop and maintain the web application. Applications developed using NodeJS can help you achieve your business objectives.

The fact is, Node JS is an open-source JavaScript environment; hence, it’s free for all developers to use. That’s why it’s being constantly upgraded and improved by a large global community of developers.

As a developer, it’s necessary to understand that Node.js is neither a framework nor a library nor a language, but a runtime environment.

You can access Web APIs in a runtime environment to create code. A JavaScript engine is then used to parse the code. This makes it lightweight, adaptable, and simple to deploy—all characteristics that will help you optimize and accelerate web development with Node.

“Node.js is not a silver-bullet new platform that will dominate the web development world. Instead, it’s a platform that fills a particular need.”

Node.js is an open-source cross-platform runtime environment that executes JavaScript separately from your browser. We can consider Node JS as a standalone environment for executing JavaScript.

NodeJS enables you to install it on a server (just like Python) and execute it with the final output. In addition, it allows you to create an individual application using other frameworks as well.

Applications created in the JavaScript programming language could only be used to run in a browser until the time Node.js was introduced. You can develop JavaScript code with Node.js both on the server and in the browser.

Node.js was developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009.

Node JS supports Google Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine that translates JavaScript code into machine code.

In simple terms, Node JS is a C++ application that considers JavaScript as Input and executes it. However, the platform has its own interface in C++ to interact with I/O devices on the system.

In fact, NodeJS allows you to use a single JavaScript language for writing code that can easily be executed on both the client-side (Front End) and server-side (Back End). The entire Node JS architecture and features are important for developing real-time event-based applications. Hence, many large organizations are taking the business benefits of NodeJS by developing applications.

Node.js uses fewer threads, which requires fewer resources and memory. As a result, Node JS speeds up task execution. Therefore, this single-threaded architecture serves the same purpose as multi-threaded architecture for our purposes. Using multi-threaded languages like Java makes considerably more sense when processing data-intensive activities. On the other hand, Node.js and top NodeJS frameworks become the ideal choice for real-time applications.

Well, these are just a few features that NodeJS offers for web development. Let’s explore more features of NodeJS for backend web development.

• Asynchronous and Event Driven: Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes Node web development highly scalable and efficient for real-time, data-intensive applications.
• Cross-platform Compatibility: Node JS is built on top of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, which means it can run on multiple operating systems including Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Server-side Scripting: When you hire NodeJS developers, they can easily write server-side scripts using JavaScript, which means they can use a single language for both client-side and server-side scripting.
• Fast and Lightweight: Node.js is known for its lightning-fast performance and less memory footprint, making it ideal for developing high-performance, real-time web applications.
• NPM: NodeJS has its own package manager, called NPM, which makes it easy for NodeJs developers to install, manage, and share packages of reusable code. For that, they just have to install NPM on Windows or Mac systems.
• Large and Active Community: NodeJS in web development shines thanks to its large and active community of developers and contributors. They constantly create and maintain a wide range of modules and tools that can be used to extend the capabilities of the platform.
• Scalable and Modular Architecture: Node JS uses a modular architecture that makes it easy to break down complex applications into smaller, more manageable components that can be easily scaled up or down as needed.
• Support for Real-time Applications: Node.js provides built-in support for real-time web application development using technologies like WebSockets, which allow for bidirectional communication between the client and server in real time.
• Maintainable: Node.js is an easy choice for developers since they can easily manage both the frontend and backend development with JavaScript as a single language.

What benefits can you leverage with NodeJS web development services? In this section, let’s understand the reasons why you should choose a prominent Node JS development company, like Radixweb which can take the best out of Node JS for your web application.

Fast Processing for Web Tasks

It's not a Myth. Node JS is fast. While talking about NodeJS vs PHP, NodeJS vs Python, or NodeJS vs Java comparison, NodeJS handles concurrent requests.

Actually, written in C++, the V8 engine used in NodeJS was originally created for the Google Chrome browser. The purpose of the V8 engine is to compile functions written in JavaScript into machine code. It provides faster speed and performance. That’s what NodeJS has extracted to provide the benefits for NodeJS web development.

Even though JavaScript is a single-threaded language, Node.js was able to handle concurrent requests thanks to non-blocking input/output and asynchronous request handling.

Considering the real example of a leading company, PayPal saw a 35% decrease in response time since migrating their application from Java to Node JS. They have seen significant improvements while adopting Node JS development services.

Microservices with Scalable Technologies

Leveraging the Node JS architecture for microservices is a great choice due to its lightweight characteristic.

Well, Martin Fowler and James Lewis rightly described the architectural style in their write-ups as, “An approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource API.”

Another example of microservices implementation with NodeJS is Walmart. The largest company, Walmart migrated its microservice architecture to NodeJS which resulted in the following benefits:

• 20% conversion growth in general and 98% mobile conversion growth overnight
• 100% uptime during Black Friday, handling over 500 million page views
• Saving up to 40% on hardware and 20-50% on overall operations

Rich Ecosystem: Node JS Libraries and Tools

Node JS comes with NPM – Node Package Manager. It acts as a marketplace for free and open-source JavaScript tools, which is crucial for web development.

The Node.js ecosystem is quite rich, with over 1 million packages in the npm registry, over 42,000 of which are now dedicated to Node.js alone, and over 10,000 new ones being published every week.

According to the statistics, npm modules make up 97 percent of modern web applications. And it demonstrates its undeniable appeal to developers.

Support from Strong Corporates

The NodeJS development was supported by Joyent. The Node.js Foundation was established in 2015 with the mission to "enable widespread adoption and help accelerate the development of Node.js."

SAP, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, Fidelity, and Fidelity became the organization's founding members.

Seamless JSON Support

Generally, other backend technologies like Ruby on Rails and PHP utilized JSON format to form communication. However, Node.js performs the communication by using JavaScript, without converting between binary models.

This is especially useful for creating RESTful APIs to support NoSQL databases like MongoDB, which is a critical component of MEAN stack development services.

Another benefit of the JavaScript ecosystem is its smooth integration with one of the major data transfer standards.

Well, Node JS is also another technology that has received a lot of criticism. So, let’s understand what developers have to say about NodeJS web development disadvantages.

Instability of API

Node.js's shifting API landscape necessitates caution, as developers must modify their codebases to stay compatible with the most recent releases. As a result, it consumes valuable resources and time.

Lack of Library Support

Since Node.js is an open-source technology, there are plenty of tools and modules available in the market for backend developers. Here you find a drawback is a lack of documentation.

Therefore, it's essential to hire Node.js developers with sufficient technical experience from Radixweb if you want to avoid falling into this trap.

Multithreading Constraints

Node.js's single-threaded architecture may restrict its capacity to effectively handle computationally demanding activities, creating challenges for businesses attempting to enter markets like machine learning or video processing.

Third-Party Module Dependency

A significant portion of the functionality of Node JS is derived from third-party modules, which increases the risk and complexity of your application. Your business must be diligent in evaluating the modules’ security and stability as well as the vendor’s capacity to offer ongoing maintenance and updates.

While talking about how NodeJS is different than web JavaScript, JavaScript is a lightweight, object-oriented language, which runs in web browsers. It’s generally used to create dynamic HTML pages with interactive effects on a webpage.

On the other hand, Node JS is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment for JavaScript, which enables JavaScript code to execute outside of the browser.

However, there are several more prime differences between JavaScript vs Node JS, which we will discuss in this section.

• Node.js is a server-side runtime environment for JavaScript, whereas web JavaScript is a client-side scripting language that runs in web browsers.
• NodeJS is typically used for building server-side applications, such as web servers, APIs, and command-line tools. On the other hand, web JavaScript is used for creating interactive web pages and web applications.
• Node.js has a built-in module system that enables developers to write reusable code and share it with other developers. Web JavaScript does not have a module system, and developers often use third-party libraries and frameworks for web application development.
• Any engine that supports JavaScript, such as V8 (Google Chrome), JavaScript Core (Safari), or Spider Monkey (Firefox), can seamlessly execute it. Therefore, programming in JavaScript becomes quite simple. Besides, Node JS only supports the V8 engine, which is unique to Google Chrome. But written JavaScript code can run in any environment, regardless of whether it supports the V8 engine. Therefore, it is not restricted to any particular browser.
• Accessing any operating system requires a specific non-blocking task. JavaScript has a few fundamental objects, but they are entirely OS-specific. For instance, ActiveX Control can only be used with Windows. Node.js is permitted to execute non-blocking, system-specific activities from any JavaScript code, though. It doesn't contain any OS-specific constants. Node.js is skilled at establishing a transparent connection with the file system that enables the developer to read and write to disk.

To understand the popularity of Node JS web development services, it’s indeed to know which large brands have adopted the NodeJS web framework for their development.

Here we have noted down the top 10 companies using Node.js for web app development.

1. LinkedIn
2. Netflix
3. Uber
4. Trello
5. PayPal
6. NASA
7. eBay
8. Medium
9. Walmart
10. GoDaddy

We just saw the NodeJs used by large enterprises, right?

Thus, the above data shows that NodeJS is one of the most versatile and popular server-side JavaScript environments that is here to stay by offering amazing features and advantages to business owners. For this reason, NodeJS development services have become very popular worldwide. And the Node team and developer community is constantly upgrading Node with every new release.

With prior success to Node JS 20, the Node team released the latest version - Node JS 21 with a stable version of fetch API, experimental support for Websocket API, partial Navigator API implementation, updated V8 JavaScript engine – 11.8, and many more.

If we look at the Statista report, around 47.12% of developers use the NodeJS web framework in the world, as of 2022.

So, the data itself represents that NodeJS continues to be the most widely used web framework by developers in the coming years as well. Considering Node JS web application examples – Netflix, Trello, LinkedIn, and PayPal, it’s clear that it's clear that Node development services are the first choice for both startups and developers for high-traffic websites and real-time applications.

While talking about Node JS in web development, developers can easily develop a web application while comparing it with Java, Go, Python, and Ruby on Rails. Hence, web development using Node JS becomes very effective, easy, and faster.

As a renowned Node.js web development company, we have listed down the top reasons why you should choose NodeJs for web development.

• Rapid Development
• Language Sharing Across the Stack
• NPM – Node Package Manager
• Single-Threaded Event Loop Architecture
• Native Support in AWS
• Deploys Web App Easily

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