Forem: Tejas Kaneriya

5 reasons why you should consider Node.js

Tejas Kaneriya — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:59:50 +0000

The programming languages have seen a paradigm shift from traditional methodologies to the modern-day easy to use approaches. Node.Js has been at the forefront of developers in recent years.

What is Node.js? In case you are wondering, let me tell you about it. It is a JavaScript runtime environment on Chrome’s V8, allowing you to develop fast and scalable web applications. It is open-source and utilizes an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model making it lightweight and efficient for data-intensive real-time applications running across shared devices.

Node.js Architecture

Node.js runs on Google’s V8 Javascript engine. Node.js processing model is based on the JavaScript event-based model with the callback mechanism. It uses the “Single Threaded Event Loop” architecture to handle multiple concurrent clients.

Why consider Node.Js?

In recent years, Node.js has gained quite a popularity for sundry reasons. It has attracted a diverse range of businesses. Among the companies that have implemented Node.js are Amazon, eBay, Reddit, Netflix, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and PayPal.

Netflix reported that there was a substantial decrease in their startup time after selecting Node.js. While Amazon stated that Node.js was chosen for its futuristic features.

Let’s explore the reasons why one should consider Node.js.

Scalability

Node.js applications are scalable - both vertically and horizontally. Where vertical scaling allows you to enter more resources to the current node, horizontal scaling will enable you to add new nodes quickly. Node.js works along with the microservices; therefore, the applications don’t require a large block in the whole development process. It’s simple, easy, and fits perfectly for startups that are looking to grow.

Performance

Node.js runs on the Google V8 JS engine, which compiles JavaScript code directly into the machine code, making it resource-efficient and accelerating the framework speed. In fact, Google invests heavily in the search engine to consistently improve the performance.

Community Support

Node.js Foundation, established in 2015, is an impressive group of founders from leading enterprises such as IBM, Microsoft, Fidelity, and SAP. A large number of developers with the Node.js fans are continuously contributing to Node.js’ evolving and nurturing community to provide support and a helping hand to the fellow developers. In addition to that, Node.js is on Github that makes it super easy and fast to develop and support the framework.

Freedom of Development

Using Node.js, developers get the freedom to develop cross-platform apps. With frameworks like Electron and NW.js, you can easily create cross-platform web applications using Node.Js, because it is compatible with desktop, mobile, and web development for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Node.js is now widely the chosen one for the developing IoT solutions as well. If you are also looking to enhance your teams’ coding efficiency and performance, Node.js is your best bet.

Single Programming Language

Node.js offers a mix of similar languages on front-end and back-end JavaScript. It is accessible and flexible, making the entire web development cycle robust and seamless for developers and enterprises. It saves time, energy, and resources man-hours investment more productive and profitable. Node.js makes the web application development convenient and makes itself the preferred tech in the market today.

Wrapping up

You would be glad to know that Node.js is used regularly by 98% of Fortune 500 companies as per the reports by the Node.js foundation. This technology is an effective solution for startups to speed up and simplify development, and a sophisticated ecosystem utilized by leading enterprises.

Want to explore more about Node.js? Read the What is Node.js? Where, when, and how to use it with examples
to know more of Node.js.

Which one is better for robust web apps? Nodejs or Django.

Tejas Kaneriya — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 17:30:42 +0000

The programmer's choice of backend technology depends upon their ability to learn and experience working on different projects. But how does that work when you have to decide based on the use case, technology/framework's ability to scale the application, performance aspect, and whether your backend framework/environment outranks other options? Nodejs and Django is one such comparison of backend platforms.

This comparison of the Javascript environment and Python framework is no less than a debate since both tools are significant.

To understand detailed comparison of Nodejs and Django, we have covered the topic in detail: Node.js vs Django: Key differences, popularity, use cases and more

Let's see what Nodejs and Django have in common or exceptional as their personal intact in building scalable apps and use cases.

Nodejs

Node.js is a developer-friendly tool. With the flexibility to design and customize templates, it has become a preferred tool for experienced developers. But the downside is that the beginners find it challenging to get things right at first. Another challenge is that it takes more time to build an app since you have to start building an app from scratch. It will also be essential to invest your time searching for implementation modules and a separate time for their testing.

Nodejs and Django are two backend platforms that build scalable applications. But what is the fundamental difference between these two powerful tools? One is a Javascript-based runtime environment while the other is a Python-based framework.

For cases where adequate time is not given, there is a possibility of not receiving reliable outcomes. For a team working on Node.js projects should make sure somebody in your group is exceptionally experienced with Javascript, experience working with Node.js would surely be a plus.

Django

Django has a built-in templates system. Anyone with HTML understanding can go along well with this without having to understand python programming. It could be helpful for beginners, as the development process becomes faster due to the ready-made availability of templates.
However, it doesn’t give you the flexibility to design everything from scratch, unlike Node.js.

Scalability in Node.js vs Django

Scalability pertains to developing apps considering the future scope to build features and functionality while handling many users/customers. A scalable solution is customizable, able to add new functionalities and open for addressing a tremendous amount of client requests, updates in real-time, and an increase in workload.

While Node.js and Django are preferred frameworks to build desired apps, let’s check their ability to build scalable apps.

Node.js

Node.js beautifully supports microservices architecture- a healthy pattern to build smaller, independent, and scalable services. It helps build apps with complicated and broad enterprise purposes.

Both Node.js and microservices architecture are suitable for each other. While Node.js can handle thousands of concurrent requests without compromising performance, microservices can create small modules for scalable apps; a great combination to build scalable and performant apps.

Due to its non-blocking I/O, event-driven architecture, and support for microservices, Node.js builds real-time streaming apps, networked and data-intensive apps.

Django

Though Django has certain restrictions to customize the apps and flexibility, it has an edge to build scalable apps because of its template fragment caching and availability of tools to handle data migrations such as performing heavy lifting of the application. It could be serving content, a large number of writes, and more types of apps.

Template fragment caching is a mechanism to cache the specific contents instead of re-rendering the block, which is the most sought-after requirement in scalable apps where so many operations and requests to be served in a short time.

Django could be used with any tech stack like Angular or Node.js to perform this heavy lifting of scalability data. So, Django is a favorable option to build highly scalable apps.

Security in Node.js vs Django

Node.js

Since Node.js doesn’t offer default security settings, your developers may have to walk a few extra miles to add security measures to ensure your application is secure. This step is important as the default session cookie names used by the framework could expose your application to the attacks.
In addition to this, your application may be vulnerable to various attacks like Cross-Site Scripting(XSS), Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), SQL Injection, among others.

Django

Conversely, Django takes security very seriously. It sanitizes its input to prevent malicious injection through the input fields of the web application. It also safely handles SQL queries to block SQL injection attacks. Some of the security features Django provides are:

Cross-site scripting (XSS) protection
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection
SQL injection protection
Clickjacking protection
SSL/HTTPS
Host header validation

Performance

The faster your web application, the higher the performance. Many things affect your web application’s performance, such as load times, code optimization, network configurations, server configurations, size, and data being passed to/from the server.

But when you compare the performance of tools like Node.js and Django, you should mainly consider the execution speed.

Node.js

When you have more resources, you can get the job done faster. When it comes to processing, more threads get tasks done more quickly. Though Node.js uses the event-loop model V8 Javascript engine to make the best use of single threads, it is not as fast as multiple threads.

Django

Django inherits Python’s high performance. The use of multiple threads helps increase performance. Django provides app caching and database optimization, further helping you improve the performance even more.

Conclusion

Though these three aspects aren’t enough to conclude the best tool to build robust apps, it must take you to conclude what’s best for your project needs. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. You can also connect me on Twitter sharing your ideas.

When to use these Nodejs frameworks? Express, Koa, Nest, Socket.io, Meteor.js

Tejas Kaneriya — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 04:51:33 +0000

According to the Node.js web survey report 2018, Node.js has increased developer productivity by 68%, reduced development costs, and enhanced app performance to a great extent. This is a result of the successful adoption and deployment of node.js frameworks.

We love node.js frameworks, right from the flexibility of Express.js, to the performance of koa.js. Node.js framework today plays a significant role in developing modern web applications.

However, recently while searching for Node.js frameworks, it took me a lot of effort to find practical implications of some of the most popular frameworks. The web is cluttered, and understanding use cases where you can use node.js frameworks is not easy information to find. Therefore, in this article, I explore the direct application of the top 5 most popular Node.js frameworks.

To know in detail about Nodejs frameworks in 2020, we have covered this topic in detail: 10 Best Nodejs frameworks for Web Apps in 2020.

Express.js

You can develop web apps faster with the framework since it has almost readily available API generation grounds. You can use it for any enterprise-grade or browser-based app because of its robust routing, templating, security features, and error handling provisions.

It’s quite suitable for almost any kind of web and mobile application development from small to large scale. For development teams at beginner levels, Express is the best choice since there’s outstanding community support available for this framework.

The following framework is- Koa.js. It’s being hailed as the next generation Node.js framework, so let’s see what it offers for modern-application development.

Koa.js

When performance is a critical demand from your web application, Koa is what you need. Especially for a big project, the framework can build extensive apps with large and experienced development teams. Under certain circumstances, Koa has proven to be a faster framework than Express.

However, it may seem to be a difficult choice for beginners because it’s still in the community's growth stages and is less popular as a result.

Nest.js

Nest.js builds efficient and scalable web applications. And since it’s written with TypeScript, much like Angular, the framework solves Node.js' main problem.

It organizes the architecture pattern and keeps it clean and modularized, helping developers build more scalable and easily maintainable applications.

Socket.io

Socket.io develops real-time applications like chat room applications, video conferencing apps, multiplayer games, and others, where servers are required to push the data without being requested from the client-side. For example, live video calling apps like Zoom need to communicate real-time bidirectional data to several participants, and Socket could come in handy with similar apps.

Meteor.js

If your development team is good to go with Javascript, Meteor.js is a splendid choice. It is effortless to learn and super fun to program in. You can use it to build apps in no time since the framework allows you to use the same code written for a web app or mobile app. With Meteor, you can also deploy live updates even on the installed apps without disrupting an on-going user session.

Also, did I mention? The framework builds real-time applications with its built-in core. Without a doubt, it’s a perfect solution for collaboration with real-time app projects, short deadlines, and cross-platform products.

Conclusion

This post doesn’t only talk about Nodejs frameworks. Instead, it lists where & how these frameworks can be used. It helps software development teams remove from second-guessing the exact use case of these Nodejs frameworks and pick up the most appropriate tool when building a project from scratch.

So which Nodejs framework do you prefer for your next project? Or is there any other framework you have used or are going to use? Let us know in the comments below.

These 5 Node.js Advantages will help you build your next Web App

Tejas Kaneriya — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 09:40:22 +0000

The impact of a sluggish and unresponsive application can bring a business down to bits and pieces. However, Node.js has been a knight in shining armor, helping modern web-based enterprises achieve scale, speed, and many other advantages which node.js offers. Wonder why Node.js is the first choice for developing web apps? If yes, then let’s dive in and explore Node.js advantages at length.

Node.js offers High-performance for Real-time Applications

With Node.js, you can build supercharged applications that display results in the blink of an eye. Web applications powered by Node.js benefit massively from its ability to multitask. Unlike other platforms, its single-threaded, event-driven architecture processes multiple concurrent requests efficiently without clogging the RAM. Moreover, its event-loop and non-blocking I/O operations allow code execution at a pace which significantly impacts the application’s overall performance.

What fuels Node.js with this superpower is that it’s built on Google Chrome’s V8 engine and written in C++. It breaks Javascript functions into machine codes with high efficiency and speed. Why this matters is because Google invests heavily in its engine to improve performance, security, and provide excellent support for modern JavaScript features. This directly impacts V8’s performance and, eventually, Node.js. To ensure continuous advancements, Google has introduced the V8 benchmark suite to elevate Node.js’ performance with faster execution, better compilers, security patchworks, and ability to scale.

Node.js offers Easy Scalability for Modern Applications

The cutting-edge technology comes with tons of features like the cluster module. It facilitates load balancing over multiple CPU cores, making it easy to deliver desired outcomes through smaller modules without burning out the RAM process. Additionally, Node.js employs a non-blocking event-loop mechanism that offers high scalability and enables the server to process requests seamlessly.

From the development standpoint, Node.js allows you to leverage Microservices that further lets you segregate your application into smaller parts. This way, you get to define tasks and allocate them efficiently among different teams to fast-track development, deployment, and maintenance of each division of your application. Node.js and Microservic allow modern applications to scale up and down as per need and help companies achieve high performance with fewer resources.

Node.js offers Community Support to Simplify Development

With millions of developers contributing actively to the Node.js community, you can expect extensive support from development experts across the globe to solve even the most peculiar development problems.

NPM, a package manager for JavaScript, is the biggest package manager registry in the world. It offers numerous tools and libraries available readily for you to use in your project. You’ll also find a large pool of resources – ready-to-use solutions, codes, modules, libraries, and registries – on GitHub built by developers to help you achieve more with limited resources.

Node.js improves App Response Time and Boosts Performance

Did you know when Netflix switched from Java and Javascript to Node.js, they hit the jackpot by dramatically reducing their start-up time from 40 minutes to under 60 seconds?

BAM! That’s something, ain’t it?

Well, it’s a given that a constant too and fro of requests has a significant impact on an app’s response time and performance, mostly a negative one if your tech stack is not equipped to handle the load of requests. Here where Node.js, with its single-threaded event-loop model, offers a non-blocking asynchronous architecture without creating more threads by employing fewer resources. This helps boost the responsiveness of your application since it can deal with multiple concurrent users simultaneously.

Node.js reduces Time-to-Market of your applications

Time is priceless to any development team, especially when time-to-market is one of the essential benchmarks of quality and performance for many. Since Node.js is lightweight, it enables developers to accelerate the overall development speed. What’s more, your team gets to use a ton of libraries, ready-to-use codes, and other resources from GitHub, which, in turn, saves a lot of coding time and effort.

Node.js also offers client-side and server-side in Javascript, making it easier and faster to manage code and data files than other similar technologies. In addition to this, its deployments assist you in receiving feedback from the production environment to execution, which also contributes to shortening your application’s time-to-market.

Wrap up

Today’s businesses demand fast, efficient, and highly scalable web apps, which are as much real-time as it can be as the most fitting solutions to meet all your business requirements. With all the advantages covered in this blog, Node.js can fit right in with your project requirements putting your mind at ease.

A brief introduction to how Node.js works.

Tejas Kaneriya — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:52:45 +0000

When it comes to web applications, there are some crucial success parameters, such as performance, scalability, and latency. Node.js is the javascript runtime environment that achieves low latency with high processing by taking a "non-blocking" model approach. Many leading enterprises like Netflix, Paypal, eBay, IBM, Amazon, and others rely entirely on the flawless performance of Node.js.

The maturity of Node.js within companies is a piece of strong evidence of the platform's versatility. It is moving to surpass being merely a web application platform and beginning to be utilized for agile experimentation with business automation, data and IoT solutions.

So what exactly is Node.js and how does it work?

Node.js is an open-source, Javascript runtime environment on Chrome’s V8 that lets you effortlessly develop fast and scalable web applications. It utilizes an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight, efficient and excellent for data-intensive real-time applications that run across shared devices.

To understand what is so special about Node.js in 2020. We have covered the topic in detail: What is Node.js? Where, when and how to use it with examples

How does Node.js work?

Node.js is an epitome of an exceptionally customizable and scalable tech. The server engine utilizes an event-based, non-blocking I/O model. This makes the adaptation of Javascript easier to the machine language providing execution of the code super fast. Thanks to Javascript and Node.js, the code operates faster in server-to-client direction. This enhances the performance ability of the web applications to the next level. To be more precise, web application development in Node.js ensures a steady and secure non-blocking I/O model, simplifying the code beautifully.

Node.js runs over Google’s V8 Javascript engine, where web applications are event-based in an asynchronous manner. Node.js platform uses a “single-threaded event loop.”

So, how exactly does Node.js handle concurrent requests along with a single-threaded model? Well! “Multi-threaded request-response” architecture is an event loop that is much slower and unable to handle multiple concurrent threads at a time.

The platform does not follow a similar request/response multi-threaded stateless model; instead, it goes by a simplified single-threaded event loop model. As per Node.js developers, a specific library called “Libuv” provides this mechanism known as an event loop. This Node.js processing model is majorly based on Javascript event-based model along with the callback mechanism.

Conclusion

Node.js runs on a single-threaded event loop and is famous for its asynchronous non-blocking model. Due to its many advantages like scalability, speed, and high performance, it has become a standalone choice for developing modern-day web applications. To dive deeper into Node.js and understand Where, when and how to it, explore the entire blog

I would love to answer your questions and discuss the topic at length. Feel free to drop your questions in the comments or let's get in touch @tejaskaneriya