The processing and consumption of information in real-time as well as the need for real-time web applications have become a must have in order to provide a highly interactive user experience. Node.js framework has emerged as an excellent tool for developing real-time web apps, as it curtails the complexity associated with the application development and allows to speed up the software development process.
In this post I will cover the advantages of Node.js making it a highly preferred server-side framework for web application development.
1. Agile Web Application Development
As you might know, Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment. Since it utilizes JavaScript, as a front-end developer you get the benefit of working in the same language just like back-end developers do. This ultimately reduces the need to understand different concepts associated with an application development project.
What's more? The data-interchange format – JSON – can be parsed natively at both ends. This further helps in reducing the processing overhead as the serialization is simplified. Apart from providing you the added advantage of using a scripting language (i.e. JavaScript), Node.js lightweight runtime helps in rapid application development and deployment. This eventually makes Node.js an excellent solution for agile development.
2. Node.js Reduces Development Time and Cost
Another great benefit of using Node.js for developing real-time web applications is that it saves you from the headache of translating your code. If you know JavaScript, then you are familiar with JSON and might be utilizing some client framework such as Ember, Angular or Backbone. In case you're not using the Node.js framework, then you'll be likely translating the logic within your head from JS to your chosen server-side framework. Also, you might be translating the HTTP data from JSON to a server-side object. But, you won't have to go through such hassle if you use Node.js for your task.
Furthermore, utilizing Node will make you reuse the templates which help to minimize the size of your app, and lessen the number of bugs produced. Needless to say, reusing the templates will reduce the overall development time and cost.
3. Save Your Low Latency Headaches
Tech companies across the globe are struggling hard to overcome low latency issues. Especially, growing startup firms can very well understand the pain points associated with the low latency. However, the high performance of an app is one thing that startups cannot sacrifice if they want to succeed. Thanks to Node.js, you can resolve the low latency issues using asynchronous input-output operations.
Node.js can handle the client and server requests asynchronously. This means that a Node server can handle multiple parallel requests without much hassle, which eventually helps to make real-time data consumption as smooth and quick as possible. The benefit that Node provides in handling many different queries in a blazing fast manner significantly helps in reducing the latency.
Since social apps tend to generate plenty of parallel queries, using Node.js for developing a social web application can help to save you from thelow latency headache caused by executing multiple parallel requests. For example, the Voxer app uses Node.js to lower the latency.
4. Perfect Tool for Developing Chats and Gaming Apps
Another excellent advantage of Node.js is that it comes with an event loop that helps to handle multi-user requests in an effortless manner. Wondering how? Node utilizes web socket protocol that helps to make a two-way communications channel established between the client and the server. This enables the server to push the data quickly to the client-side – just like a client can perform when pushing the data to the server. The best aspect of using web sockets is that they help to avoid the HTTP overhead.
The ability to handle multi-user requests make Node.js ideally suited for building chats and gaming apps. After all, both of these app categories require handling multiple data calls every second.
Wrapping Up
One can easily observe how real-time web apps are becoming the “Next Big Thing." Node is a scalable framework which is of a paramount importance for any startup. It is an ideal choice for building a lightweight and performant system that contributes to the progress of real-time responses. Node.js framework has been designed in a way that it helps to support the development of real-time web applications starting from scalability, reduced development cycles to ability to work on the front-end and back-end using the same programming language.
What are some of the cons of Node.js? Please share your thoughts below.
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