Node.js- Its purpose, pros, and cons for Web App Development

Ever wondered why giants like Netflix and Paypal trusted their servers to Node.js? When it comes to web app development, Node.js is the perfect choice to develop web apps in real-time. If you want to explore about Node.js, then you are in the right place! In this blog, we’ll walk you through Node.js advantages, disadvantages, and benefits that’ll help you understand how it can add value to your projects.

Introduction

As we all know, Javascript is one of the most popular and widely used client-side programming languages. It is mainly a web front-end development tool and is undoubtedly worth more than just a handy customer for the building a cross-development platform.

It is quite popular due to its usage in numerous other popular platforms such as Titanium, React Native, NativeScript, Apache, PhoneGap, and so on. In the current times, the use of Javascript has expanded, and now it is used in server-side programming too. Node.js is indeed one of the major in this significant shift in web development. 

Let’s know about NodeJS:

In the simple term, node.js is a free, open-sourced, cross-platform javascript run-time environment that helps in the execution of javascript code server-side. It allows developers to write command-line tools and server-side scripts outside of a browser. As it is an open-source, cross-platform javascript, it helps in the development of real-time network applications. It mainly operates on a single-threaded event-based loop, but you relate node.js, not a platform, and it has nothing to do with PHP, JAVA, or .NET.

Why use Node.js for creating web apps?

As we have already discussed above, node.js. No wonders, node.js is one of the most influential technologies. Ryan Dahl first launched the technology in 2009 at the annual European JSConf. It immediately became one of the most exciting single pieces of software in the current javascript universe. 

Since the launch, it has been enjoying the massive attention of all the developers. It has numerous features that have made it become a top choice for developers when they want to create web app development. It allows developers to create web servers and networking tools as it has practical use of javascript. Its application can also run on numerous servers, including Mac OS, X, Microsoft Windows, Unix, and so on. 

Moreover, it has an inbuilt library that offers extended features to apply to act as a web server. Let’s look at its significant benefits and drawbacks of Node.js.

Advantages of Node.js

1. It offers an easy scalability

One of the key reasons that most of the developers love node.js is that they find it quite easy to scale the application in the horizontal and vertical direction. The developers can scale the application in a horizontal manner by adding extra nodes to the existing one. 

It also allows the option to create some additional resources for the single nodes in the vertical scaling of the application. Hence, it proves that it is highly scalable as well as better than any other javascript server.

2. It has great availability

As we have earlier mentioned above, node.js is an open-source platform. With node.js, anyone can quickly learn, develop, and distribute the technology for any purpose. It is free for all users. As ready-made modules, code samples, and libs are open-source, it allows users to configure the app quickly and without any cost.

No wonder people are highly willing to acquire this technology as it is quite easy to learn and available to them.

3. It is known for offering high performance

As we all know, Node.js interprets the javascript code via Google’s V8 javascript engine. Google invests massive amounts in its engine. As a result, performance improves continuously.

The engine complies with the javascript code directly into the machine code. This helps to make it faster as well as easier to implement the code. It also allows features of single module caching that help the application load faster and be more responsive.

4. It has the support of the large and active community

Node.js has a large and active community of developers who keeps working hard towards further development and improvement. Moreover, the groups of large developers are well supported by the javascript programmers that provide readymade and easy solutions and also codes in GitHub. In the upcoming years, developers will initiate many further developers.

Drawbacks of the Node.js

It would not be fair to list only the benefits of Node.js and not mention the drawback of Node.js. Here we have a list of some common cons that most developers have to face. let’s have a glance:

1. An application programming interface (API) is not stable

One of the most common problems that most of the developers have to face about Node.js is the application programming interface (API) is not fixed. It keeps on changing at frequent intervals of time.

When a new API arrives, the number of backward-incompatible changes also changes. Hence, the developers have to make changes in the accessible code bases to match with the latest Node.js API. 

2. It doesn’t have a substantial library support system

In comparison to other programming languages, javascript doesn’t have a reliable and robust library system. In most cases, users have to take the support of another library for numerous tasks such as Processing of the image, object-relational mapping, XML parsing, handling database operations, and so on. 

This becomes quite difficult for developers to perform even common programming tasks using Node.js. 

3. It is not suitable for heavy-computing apps

Another problem that most of the developer has to face is that it doesn’t support multi-threaded programming yet. Though it can serve apps such as ruby or more complicated than that, it’s not suitable for performing long-running calculations. 

If you try to do heavy computations then, it may lead to a decrease in the performance. However, node.js is suitable for complex apps, but it may perform less effectively in a case that requires some heavy-computing. 

Concluding Thoughts

Here, in this article, we have discussed the benefits as well as drawbacks of node.js. No wonders, the node.js has more advantages to its disadvantages, and all the disadvantages are relatively fixable. node.js uses javascript that provides a sound system for back-end development as developers are much more familiar and comfortable. With the evolution of time, more and more businesses have adopted node.js and have ended getting positive results. 

I hope you guys liked the content of the article and find it helpful. If you like the article, then please do like and comment.