Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform and server side runtime environment based on JavaScript that runs on the V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser. Node.js is fast, lightweight and efficient and designed to build scalable network applications.
Now, let us discuss some of the key features of Node.js.
1. API
– Node.js significantly allows developers to write real-time applications and also provides better scope for mobile application development in JavaScript.
– It is easier to find a library to create e.g. REST or GraphQL API
2. Developing streaming web applications
– Its built-in stream module helps to process huge amounts of data chunks sequentially.
– It refrains from temporary storing of cache data in application memory.
3. Real time web applications
– It handles lots of I/O operations which is great for building real-time web applications.
4. Microservices
– It helps in building and deploying microservices.
– Due to its lightweight nature, scalability of applications is easier.
5. Scalability
– Offers high performance and acts super fast for asynchronous side programming.
– Lets you execute multiple task at the same time
– You can integrate Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform.
– Save time by using reusable, ready-to-run components of node modules..
Now that you are familiar with most of the well-known feature, let us look at some of benefits for why you should choose Node.js in your next project
1. Scalable systems
– Scale the application horizontally by deploying many instances of your project to the different servers.
– Scale your system vertically, by using a cluster built-in module that will fork the application process to all the CPU cores you have.
2. Open-source NPM repository
– 60 thousand are easily available and ready to use for your solutions.
3. Single programming language
– Use only JavaScript to save time and resources.
4. Good for microservices
5. Non-blocking I/O paradigm
6. Reusable code
There are many companies like Netflix, LinkedIn, Paypal, Uber, eBay, NASA that use Node.js.