In a world full of cutting-edge web application development technologies, it becomes challenging for startups and businesses to choose the right platform. However, the struggle can be cut off by considering top-notch application solution like Node.js. It is an open-source runtime environment that runs on JavaScript to develop mobile and web applications.

Node.js has been holding a leading rank in the web app development industry for a long time. A large number of businesses and developers consider using Node.js because of its excellent features and zero error productivity. More than 40% of Node.js developers use the technology for enterprise application development and 85% for web app development. In a nutshell, Node.js is a popular JavaScript runtime environment that provides server-side and client-side programming technology for enterprise requirements. 

First introduced by Ryan Dahl in 2009 to create dynamic web pages for the central browser, the technology has now become one of the most used softwares in the JavaScript world. In this article, we will answer some of the most buzzed questions about Node.js:

1.Is Node.js good for my upcoming project?

2.What are the advantages and disadvantages of Node.js?

3.Why Node.js become a standard for enterprises?

But, before knowing each answer to the above questions in detail and determining whether Node.js fits the needs of your next project, let’s learn more about Node.js.

What is Node.js?

Node.js is neither a programming language nor a framework. It is a backend runtime environment based on Chrome V8 and Chromium Browser Engine. Node.js is a part of the popular MEAN and Mern JavaScript technology stack that covers the entire web development pipeline. 

The technology uses an event-driven and asynchronous non-blocking input/output model that focuses on Node.js interaction with system disk and networking. It has become the primary choice for many industries like Healthcare and Ecommerce due to its scalability, modularity, and accessibility.  

Now, let’s move on to answer the most asked question by the engineers “Is Node.js worth for my next project?” We will take a look at the list of advantages and disadvantages of Node.js to get the clear picture. This way, it becomes easy to determine whether the Node.js technology is good or bad for your project. 

Advantages of Node.js

Create Real-time Applications: Node.js is an excellent choice for developers who want to make real-time applications. Some of the best instances of real-time applications that use Node.js are online gaming, video conference apps, messengers etc. For web applications, Node.js increases the scope for fast speed and scalability. It also provides event-driven and non-blocking I/O benefits.

High Performance and Fast Speed: Node.js is one of the best backend web development technologies available for engineers today. The technology seems to be more assertive with each passing year. It is handled by Google V8 engines that compiles JS code in the native application and increases the speed & productivity. As an example, PayPal witnessed a 35% increase in performance after executing Node.js in the web development services.

Good-to-go for Microservice Architecture: Node.js is a highly scalable and lightweight technology that makes it an excellent choice for Microservice architecture. It allows developers to compartmentalize a single application into several small tasks of services. Each task executes independently in the application and developers can modify or implement the code without affecting the primary application structure.

Single Codebase for Client & Server side: Node.js follows single-scripting or single codebase to create client side and server side code. This helps developers to share the code between the two platforms in a flexible way. Many times organizations face challenges due to use of different codebase language for the client and server side. However, this is not the case with Node.js.

Concurrent Requests: Node.js is developed with Event loop, Google Chrome v8 JavaScript Engine, livuv etc. It uses thread pool for I/O tasks such as network requests, executing database queries etc. and continues to pick up other requests instead of sitting idle. Once Node.js gets the response from I/O requests, it will serve this request thereby handling multiple concurrent tasks.

Disadvantages of Node.js 

Ineffectiveness for CPU inbound tasks: The Node.js inability to process inbound tasks quickly create hassle for the developers. When Node.js receives a CPU bound task, all the CPUs are engaged in the processing of the task and after that the queued requests are answered. Due to this, the process becomes slow and causes a delay in the event loop.

Callback Hell Loop Issue: Node.js provides deep-nesting callbacks after each task is finished. It provides a single-thread environment that means no two parts of the application run side-by-side. However, if the developer runs several tasks in the background, it will fall in the Callback Hell Loop.

Conclusion

The outcome of our above discussion is clear – Node.js is good for your upcoming project, and the benefits are endless. The technology has various valuable features like non-blocking architecture, works excellent for encoding and broadcasting structure, uploading multiple files, and much more. Also, the drawbacks like Callback Hell Loop can be easily fixed by clearing queued tasks from the background.

At BigStep Technologies, we have a team of professional Node.js Developers that implement the best Node.js practices. If you want the top-notch Node.js service for your organization and project, connect with us by dropping an email at info@bigsteptech.com