Node also called Node.js where js means JavaScript is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment for executing JavaScript code outside of the browser. To run JavaScript on the backend servers, a virtual machine like V8 by Google executes JS in the server so Node is a wrapper around virtual machines like V8 with built-in modules providing rich features through easy to use asynchronous API.
Backend services like APIs(Applications Programming Interfaces) uses Node to build its services. These services power client applications like web apps inside web browsers and mobile apps on mobile devices. Users see and interact with these clients’ apps, so, they are just at the surface an interact with services sitting under server or in the cloud to store data, send emails, push notifications, kick of workflow and more.
Node is ideal for highly-scalable, data-intensive and real-time backend services that power real-time applications.
Traditionally, the browser provided the runtime environment for the JS code. Every browser has a JS engine that converts the JS code to machine code. For instance, Microsoft Edge has Chakra, Firefox has spider monkey and Chrome has V8 engines.
To execute JS out of the browser the fastest engine V8 is embedded into a C++ program, this is called Node. Therefore, Node is a runtime environment for JS code.
It contains the JS engine that executes JS code but also has certain objects that provide an environment for JS code that is not provided inside browsers.
Let us now look at the popular NodeJs Frameworks:
It is introduced by Eran Hammer at Walmart while trying to handle traffic on black Friday. It is a powerful and robust open-source framework for developing JSON API. Application programming interface (API) servers, websites, and HTTP proxy applications are built with hapi.js. Various key features such as input validation, implement caching,configuration-based functionality, error handling, logging, and more and the well-developed plugin system and make the Hapi one of the most preferred frameworks. It is used in building useful applications and providing technology solutions by several large-scale websites such as PayPal, Disney.
Features:
Built by TJ Holowaychuk, Express.js is a flexible and minimal Node.js application framework specifically designed for building single-page, multi-page, and hybrid applications that provide a robust set of features for web and mobile applications.
Express has no out-of-the-box object-relational mapping engine. Express isn’t built around specific components, having “no opinion” regarding what technologies you plug into it. This freedom, coupled with lightning-fast setup and the pure JavaScript environment of Node, makes Express a strong candidate for agile development and rapid prototyping. Express is most popular with startups that want to build a product as quickly as possible and don’t have very much legacy code.
The framework has the advantage of continuous updates and reforms of all the core features. It is a minimalist framework that is used to build several mobile applications and APIs.
Developed and maintained by the creators of widely used Node.js framework — Express.js, Koa, a cross-platform server-side runtime environment application, is an object containing an array of middleware functions that are composed and executed in a stacked manner upon request making it easier for web developers to build fast and scalable network applications with JavaScript. It improves interoperability, robustness, and makes writing middleware much more enjoyable.
Many web developers, at present, even use Node.js to write both frontend and backend of a web application in JavaScript. Web developers can further accelerate the development of custom web applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) by using several Node.js frameworks.
It is a model–view–controller(MVC) framework for Node.js that follows the principle of “convention over configuration.” The Ruby on Rails web framework inspires it, thus emulates the familiar MVC pattern to build single-page apps, REST APIs, and real-time apps. Extensively uses code generators that allow building applications with less writing of code. The framework is built on top of Socket.io, a JavaScript library for adding real-time, bidirectional, event-based communication to applications And Express.js, one of the most popular Node.js libraries.
It is a platform for building applications using Node.js with any frontend framework like Angular, React, or even Blaze, which is the Meteor frontend framework. The database its uses is MongoDB by default.
Features:
DerbyJS is an open-source, full-stack framework for building modern realtime web applications. Uses PubSub and is compatible with any database. We can use the NPM to add features and functionality to a Derby project. Any other party library is not loaded automatically and is not globally included in Derby, and one has to “require” as they would with any node.js project. Derby is focused on allowing users to create fast-loading realtime web-apps and is flexible and extensible. Templates can be provided in the browser and on the server. In a browser, DerbyJS renders with fast, native DOM methods.
Features:
Total.js is a modular and modern Node.js three-year-old framework supporting the MVC architecture. Client-side frameworks like Angular.js, Polymer, Backbone.js, Bootstrap, are fully compatible with this framework. This framework is extensible and asynchronous and offers excellent performance and stability. Any tools such as Grunt are not required to compress it easy to use. It also has NoSql embedded in it and supports the array and other prototypes.
Features:
Adonis is a node.js framework that has a hardcore MVC structure, which is a design pattern where it breaks certain functionalities up into different sections of the applications. Adonis uses the edge template engine, which is really easy to use.
Features:
NestJS is a progressive Node.js framework for building efficient, reliable and scalable server-side applications helping developers create modular, highly scalable, and maintainable server-side web applications.
It implements the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern and provides extensibility. The outstanding feature of NestJS is its native support for TypeScript, which lets you access optional static type-checking along with strong tooling for large apps and the latest ECMAScript features.
Features:
LoopBack is a Node.js framework with an easy-to-use CLI and a dynamic API explorer. It allows you to create your models based on your schema or dynamic models in the absence of a schema. It is compatible with a good number of REST services and a wide variety of databases, including MySQL, Oracle, MongoDB, Postgres, and more.
It can allow a user to build a server API that maps to another server, almost like creating an API that is a proxy for another API. It’s support for native mobile and browser SDKs for clients like Android/Java, iOS, Browser JavaScript(Angular).
Features:
Learning new frameworks is overwhelming and requires a lot of research before starting. Above mentioned frameworks are most popularly used and offer different features. Which framework do you use or prefer to use? Do you have any more frameworks to share? Comment below!
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