Node.js is actually not a framework or a library, but a runtime environment, based on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine.
The technology was first introduced back in 2009 by Ryan Dahl at the annual European JSConf and was immediately recognized as “the most exciting single piece of software in the current JavaScript universe”.
As an open-source project, Node.js was sponsored by Joyent, a cloud computing and hosting solutions provider. The company invested in several other technologies, such as the Ruby on Rails framework, and provided hosting services to Twitter and LinkedIn. The latter also became one of the first companies to use Node.js for its mobile application backend. The technology was later adopted by some technology leaders, such as Uber, eBay, Walmart, and Netflix, to name a few.
Benefits of Node.js
Among the most popular programming languages, JavaScript has proved to be undisputedly the most popular. As a result, Node.js has established itself as a brand name in the industry. Besides, Node JS has over 40 million downloads and over 1000 contributors.
Using Node.js for backend,
- better efficiency and overall developer productivity
- code sharing and reuse
- speed and performance
- easy knowledge sharing within a team
- a huge number of free tools
Besides them, Node.js has Fast-processing and event-based models. There a couple of reasons for Node.js showing such results:
V8 engine - The engine used in the Node.js implementation was designed specifically for the Chrome browser. Chrome’s V8, which is written in C++, is used to translate JavaScript functions into machine code, and it does so quickly. V8 demonstrates performance improvements every year, and Node.js extracts the whole bag of benefits out of it.
Non-blocking Input/Output and asynchronous request handling - Node.js can handle requests in real-time. Synchronous processing means the code is executed in sequential order on the backend. As a result, each request creates a thread block, forcing other requests to wait for it to complete. Asynchronous processing enables requests to be handled without the thread being blocked (non-blocking I/O). As a result, it may submit a callback after a request is processed and continue serving requests. This allows Node.js to take advantage of single threading, resulting in fast response times and parallel processing.
Event-based model-Synchronization is fast because both the client and server use the same language, which is particularly useful for event-based, real-time applications. Node.js is a common option for online gaming, chats, video conferences, and any solution that needs continuously updated data due to its asynchronous, non-blocking, single-threaded design.
Scalable technology for microservices.
Since it’s a lightweight technology tool, using Node.js for microservices architecture is a great choice.
As a result, instead of having a single, wide monolithic core, you can allow better flexibility and lay the groundwork for future growth by breaking the application logic into smaller modules, microservices. As a result, adding more microservices on top of existing ones is much simpler than integrating new features into the simple app functionality.
Furthermore, Node.js has,
- Rich ecosystem
- Strong corporate support
- JSON support
as well.
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