Node.js

Madusanka Gajadeera
3 min readMar 8, 2021

What is Node.js

Node.js is a cross-platform open-source runtime environment. As nodejs.org states node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on chrome’s v8 engine (JavaScript engine). Node.js initially released 11 years ago on May 27, 2009. Web developers use Node.js to build both front-end and back-end web applications using JavaScript but most of the time node.js is used to build back-end specially when using stacks such as MEAN and MERN. From node.js developers can develop a web application using a single language on both the server-side and the client-side. This can run applications efficiently and fast. And it reduces the development time and maintenance cost of the web application.

When to use node.js

Node.js is best for building real-time applications because real-time applications built with node.js have a significant speed and performance is high. For example, real-time messaging or chatting applications, online video games, e-commerce applications, etc.

What node.js can do

· Can add, delete, modify data in your database.

· Can generate dynamic page content.

· Can collect form data.

· Can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server.

Why use node.js

· Node.js is an open-source runtime environment which is free of charge and does not need licensing.

· Development can be done faster by code sharing between the front-end and back-end.

· Used for I/O non-blocking, event-driven servers, due to its single-threaded nature.

· Huge number of free tools.

· Greater efficiency

· High-performance for real-time applications.

· Cost-effective with full-stack JS

· Can learn easily.

· Can quickly adapt.

· Can build cross-platform applications

· Loading time can be reduced by quick caching.

Why not use node.js

· Performance can be reduced when handling heavy computing tasks.

Since node.js is single-threaded and event-driven, when executing heavy CPU-based computing can go down a shortage.

· Lack of library support can endanger the code.

Some of the NPM registries and libraries are not of good quality and with incomplete documentation. Incompetent developers may face difficulties when developing web applications using node.js. But professionals and experts who have done many projects and have a huge amount of experience can build the projects successfully.

· API Instability

In node.js API changes often and then the stability of the application becomes less. Due to the lack of backward compatibility in the new API developers need to do an additional amount of work to work with the API.

You install node.js from nodejs.org

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