Many developers have switched from using Javascript for building mobile apps, especially for the web. This has brought an exponential growth by using the frameworks which are specially built for the Javascript community to facilitate quicker prototyping by designing amazing projects.
The Node.js was first in the tech community in the year 2009 as a tool for building scalable web applications from server-side. It also came with more benefits that include using event-driven non-blocking input and output model and single-threaded asynchronous programming amongst the others.
Since many years, many javascript developers have built a number of impressive frameworks to get started with node.js when developing web applications. In this blog, we will be listing some of the most recognized node.js frameworks which should be considered by node js developers for building web applications no matter what the size. Let us begin with some basic terms.
What is Node.JS Framework?
The node framework is just some type of abstract design built from the node which embodies the control flow of the design for your given framework. So, it is mostly similar to the skeleton of a program where you can customize codes by writing as you wish to complete the program. Hence, for every node function, there comes a little of generic implementation which should be unique to the framework that requires the users to follow the lead of the framework by adding more of codes to define the use case.
What are the Advantages of using a Node.js Framework?
The node.js frameworks are mostly famous because of their productivity, scalability and faster speed which makes them one of the top choices for creating enterprise apps for organizations. The framework also allows you to write the same language for both of your front-end and back-end by saving the stress of learning a new language for a simple implementation that helps you maintain the same coding pattern throughout the code. Using the framework, you can work with a set of tools, guidelines and recommended practices which will help you save time by solidifying the code standards across the developer’s team.
How do you Select the Right Framework?
So, we saw how a framework can help to ease out your tasks. But the questions arises how do you actually select the most appropriate one for your program? Well, selecting a framework can be a bit and subjective as per its use case because we select the ones based on any particular feature we like the most. The selection ranges from the weight of the framework on the application, speed, simplicity, learning curve, flexibility, configuration, use case to sometimes from its popularity in some cases (GitHub stars).
So, let us take a drive into the main purpose of this post by listing out all the important Node.js frameworks which will help you to boost your productivity for building application especially on server-side.
Express.js (GitHub – 41,036 stars)
The framework is defined as a fast, non-opinionated and minimalist web framework which is simply a technology that behaves like a middleware to help manage our servers and routes. It has the ability to build a light-weighted application that can process multiple requests seamlessly by depending on the server capacity like express. The framework’s robust API allows to configure routes for sending and receiving requests between the front-end and database; it also supports multiple other packages and templates like Pug, Mustache, EJS and much more.
AdonisJs (GitHub – 5,053 stars)
The framework is a node.js MVC framework which runs on all major operating systems by offering a stable ecosystem for writing server-side web apps so that you can focus on your business needs. It supports an ORM which is made up of SQL-databases by creating efficient SQL-queries and active record idea. It has an easy query builder to allow build quicker and simpler queries. Supports No-SQL database such as MongoDB and possess structure alike Laravel for web development.
Sails.js (GitHub – 19,887 stars)
The framework is used to build custom made enterprise-grade Node.js applications as per the modern app requirements. It has APIs that are data-driven with a scalable and service-oriented architecture which bundles an ORM compatibility with almost all databases. It supports adaptors like MYSQL, Mongo, PostgreSQL, Redis, and also Local Disk.
Meteor.js (Github – 40,490 stars)
The framework is defined as a full-stack javascript platform for developing modern web and mobile apps on real-time updates. As you make changes to the web app, it will automatically update the template with the latest changes. This makes it quite simplifies by providing a platform from the entire tier of the app to be in the same language – JavaScript by making it efficient on both server and client side. The framework also comes with organized document and large community which has a huge group of developers for faster learning and quick support for your queries.
Hapi.js (GitHub – 10,371 stars)
The framework is supported by Walmart Labs that helps to serve data by intermediating among the server and client. It is a configuration-driven pattern and traditionally modeled to control your web server operations. It has a unique feature of creating a server on a specific IP by using ‘onPreHandler’ to do something with a request before it’s completed and intercepted on the request. You can consider it as a handler function where you need to call a route and then pass some configurations while making the requests for getting the function do something specified in the configuration.
Nest.js(GitHub – 10,128 stars)
The framework is used for building efficient and scalable node.js server-side applications by using progressive javascript that is written with TypeScript. It also comes with strong typing and combined elements of object-oriented programming(OOP), functional programming(FP) and functional reactive programming(FRP). It is used to create an effortless application which is highly tested, scalable, coupled loosely and maintained easily.
Koa.js (GitHub – 23,902 stars)
The Koa.js is referred to as the next-gen web framework which utilizes some really new ECMAScript (ES6) methods that is not even launched in many browsers yet. This allows you to work without callbacks and provides an immense increase in error handling by faster speed. The framework does not bundle any middleware with the core by making them cascaded or streamlined as every line of code is elegant and granular which allows you to structure the parts as you want them. It has more control over configurations and handling of your app.
Wrap Up
If there is anything you can pick from this post, we believe that you must have noticed now that selecting the right framework is actually based on what you want to achieve with it.
The node.js frameworks have shown that no matter which one you select, there is always an open and welcoming community out there to solve your issues and also help you to learn the basics of your chosen framework which is a very important factor to look after along with more factors like GitHub stars, contributions and so on.
Do you feel to add any other amazing Node.js framework which is worth adding into the list? Then, feel free to mention below. Keep Learning!
