Javascript thrived in front-end development for decades and was used by big tech giants such as Google and Facebook for client-side development..
However in recent years, developers are getting more inclined towards NodeJS for front-end development due to countless benefits that it adds to the application.
In addition, NodeJS serves as a backend tool that easily fits with syntax and JS functionality making it a commendable tool for web development.
There are diverse features of NodeJS that give an edge to the technology. Here are the top five features of NodeJS that makes it a versatile tool to fall in love with!
Before kick starting it, let’s have an overview of NodeJS.
 An Overview of NodeJS
NodeJS is fundamentally used for backend development of websites. It helps developers build efficient and robust server side and strong network web applications.
It’s based on a Javascript runtime environment enabling access to built in libraries that gets easily available to programs for better interaction with the outside world and it says alot about the environment in which an application is executed.
NodeJS works best with Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The developers take it as a leverage to gather data from the client side and subsequently add, update or delete it according to the requirement.
Once the task gets completed, it sends a response to the client. The best part is that its entire process is done in a fraction of seconds.
Read more about Which is better: NodeJS or ReactJS?
Top 5 awesome features that NodeJS offers
The positive outlook of using Javascript in web development is that it can be indefinitely be used in full stack development with NodeJS. NodeJS is used as a server side Javascript engine or for backend development.
We’ve listed below a few notable benefits that NodeJS carries in the web app development:
1. Reusable Modules
The NodeJS can be used to build specialized functionality and can be used as Javascript modules. It enables modules to get exportable into different kinds of applications resulting in elimination of redundancy and welcomes cleaner codes.
The modules can further be coded for any purpose and can be reused in the development of various applications. ‘
Its modularity facilitates the development of highly scalable applications by encouraging loose coupling and effortless code maintenance.
 Also, the modules can be further reused with less maintenance making it more cost effective.
In addition, the upgrades can be done while ensuring less impact on existing functionality.
The Node package manager offers an online package database where you can easily publish, update and share modules and sync it with source control software and NPM.
2. Node Package Manager
One of the notable reasons to get inclined towards NodeJS is that it enables you to download and directly use the code packages without putting in efforts to do it from scratch.
Although these node packages are created by other developers, you can directly access them in your project.
It minimizes the burden and the process of coding it all over. It’s a great relief to have access to the software library.
Also, the process of depending on the application management gets broken off by directly installing the library codes and its dependencies.
Another brownie of using NodeJS is that you can use JSON files to script infrastructure related tasks.
The JSON script allows to automate the IAC/DevOps tasks and with the scripts you can also configure code to publish, compile and create a local environment.
3. Native Support
Generally, web applications do need a hosting platform where they’d require a host. What could be better than AWS or amazon web services. Amazon Web Services supports NodeJS and is closely integrated with it.
The integrated development environment or cloud9 IDE of amazon enables users to directly edit the code and write from the browsers. Here NodeJS works the best with it.
Besides Javascript being used with Amazon web service tools, the NodeJS can also access Amazon’s Internet of things (IoT) SDK or amazon web service cloud development kit for Javascript.
4. Ideal architecture for microservices
To ensure concurrency, the web development frameworks prefer using multi-thread request response architecture.
The repercussions of using multi-threaded architecture is that it has quite a restricted number of threads and if the number of requests gets exceeded , the requests would then have to be in queue and wait until the threads get freed up.
 In NodeJS the event loop architecture is single-threaded where it facilitates microservice architecture.
The brighter side of single-threaded architecture is that the event loop reads items and then processes through it to assess the requests and determine whether these are I/O operations.
If they block IO requests, they’d get picked up, and if they aren’t blocking, they’d be handled concurrently with other I/O requests. The event loop provides seamless handling of requests.
This single threaded event loop in NodeJS reduces the need for connection management or thread management.
Also, it effectively utilizes the resources occupying less memory of a normal event processing system making it highly likable amongst websites. The websites such as Zillow, Twitter, Discord and BBC use NodeJS.
5. Non-Block event I/O framework
The NodeJS is based on V8 engine which is single threaded and massively supports non-blocking I/O events making the server application more efficient with optimum resources.
The non-blocking I/O events can be a huge benefit to the web development services with enhanced context switching.
In addition, the thread in NodeJS in web development continues with the execution of code just after the API call without awaiting for control to return back to the main code.
It ensures that the server remains connected to various clients at the same time and efficiently serves the client requests without getting blocked. The response time gets minimized too.
In fact, the gradual shift from Java to Node.js has been an enormous benefit in terms of response time, which has drastically decreased. Many giant companies have experienced a strong reduction in startup time.
One of the companies that belong to this gang is Netflix. It has witnessed an impressive reduction in startup time after switching to NodeJS from Javascript.
Read about What Is Node.js and Why You Should Use It
Top 5 outstanding reasons that make NodeJS an excellent choice for web app development?
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Observing the graph from Statista, it’s clearly evident that NodeJS is the leading framework with more than 47% developers inclined towards using it for web development.
The significant reason for picking NodeJS is the development of efficient and scalable REST APIs, desktop applications, mobile applications and IoT-based products in reduced time and at optimum cost.
1. Full stack web development
As mentioned above, the notable reason for the development of NodeJS was to make it easier to use Javascript on the backend.
It makes Javascript now more accessible for both front-end and backend development.
You don’t have to go the extra mile to hire separate developers for website development. You just have to hire the best NodeJS developers and they’re good to handle both client-side and server-side website development.
Also, NodeJS is simple to learn and use. Its community support is amazing and comprises a decent number of pre-built packages and functionalities that you can make the best use of in your project.
In addition, the NodeJS enables you to code backend in relatively minimized time and with just a small chunk of code lines that are far easy to maintain.
You can also form a cross-functional team of NodeJS while ensuring efficient communication. Hiring a full stack developer is a wiser option than going ahead with hiring separate developers for both frontend and backend development.
2. Build Real Time Application
The best part about the world of web development is that it never stays the same and the websites and applications have always evolved to become more dynamic and interactive.
On the one side Javascript facilitates the transition of static HTML web pages to interactive and dynamic web applications, the other side NodeJS brings in the real-time capabilities.
This great combination of these two huge technologies ends up making an application more powerful and robust.
In addition, real-time features such as headless browsers, chatbots, and online games can be easily developed with NodeJS.
Also, you get the benefits such as messaging, notifications, live streaming, IoT integrations and many more that can add a great user experience to the application.
It also adds the benefit of bringing real time capabilities to the web application, event listeners and socket modules.
Furthermore, its efficient I/O non-blocking framework makes it quite simple and easier to develop two way connection applications.
3. Scalability
The ability to build highly scalable applications is the highlight of NodeJS.
 It’s best intended for the startups to develop fast systems which can deliver real-time responses and can be scaled further to add more modules into the pre-existing ones.
Also, the scalability in NodeJS is done through the capacity of handling a huge chunk of concurrent connections and load balance.
In addition, the NodeJS application does support horizontal and vertical scaling.
Its microservice architecture can be a great added benefit for startups who’reinto future growth projects and can even develop separate microservice and scale it differently from the system.
4. Launch MVP
Needless to mention, MVP plays a pivotal role in the validation of ideas ahead of launching the application.
It gives you a brief idea about the application and the extent of efforts you’d be putting in the development process. Also, it ensures that you don’t end up overspending bombs on the development process if it doesn’t receive a strong validation from the users.
With NodeJS, you can accelerate the development of MVP before introducing the application into the full-fledged market.
5. Control flow feature
When it comes to the asynchronous nature of NodeJS in web app development, developers have a mixed opinion as some think that it added a benefit in web app development while some feel it as a setback to the application.
When the function is executed in NodeJS, the code transmits a callback and as the function goes in escalation, the number of callbacks gets carried up as well resulting in callback hell.
It’s not appreciated by most developers. However, NodeJS has an alternative here as well.
You don’t have to constantly scroll through the callbacks. Generally, the frameworks are used to map functions through callbacks.
Here the frameworks will automatically get connected to similar functions enabling you to search for required features by browsing through the folder. It eliminates the need to scroll all the way through callbacks.
Conclusion
NodeJS is the best tool to develop scalable and great-performing web applications.
You can easily create an application with NodeJS and use it as a full stack development alongside JavaScript without hiring separate frontend and backend developers.
