Brendon Eich introduced JavaScript as an intuitive scripting programming technology to manipulate the DOM of the Netscape Browser. At that time, JavaScript was primarily being utilized for Web Front-end development.
We have already detailed the crucial information related to front-end JS frameworks, and now is the right time to look at JavaScript’s contribution in the back-end!
If you want to build a JavaScript-based back-end app, then which framework should you select? This write-up will share all the crucial information required for a product owner to work with JavaScript in back-end development.
JavaScript in Back-end Development: OverView
Over the last decade, NodeJS has gained exceptional popularity. The popularity and success of NodeJS have made JavaScript the “lingua franca” of the server-side and client-side web. Nowadays, JavaScript ranks at the top of the most popular Server–side programming technologies.
Benefits of JavaScript in Back-end ( Taking example of NodeJS)
Robust Technology Stack
JavaScript has significantly proven to be an undisputed leader among the most popular programming technologies. In turn, NodeJS has become a stand-alone name in the industry.
With a huge number of downloads and millions of new contributors, the project seems to be stronger than ever.
Using NodeJS for the back-end, you automatically get all the pros of full-stack JavaScript development:
- Enhanced efficiency and overall developer productivity
- speed and performance
- Code sharing and reuse
- a vast number of free tools
- easy knowledge sharing within a team
Consequently, your development team is a lot more flexible, less time-consuming, and as a result, you get quick and reliable software. Programmers trained in front-end JavaScript can start programming the server-side with minimum effort.
Rich Ecosystem
One word – npm, a default NodeJS package manager, also serves as a marketplace for open-source JavaScript tools, which plays a significant role in this technology. With about one million libraries available in the npm registry as of now, and more than 10,000 new ones being published every season, the NodeJS ecosystem is quite rich.
Similar stats point out that 97 percent of modern web apps consist of npm modules. And that is proof of its undisputable popularity among the community of developers.
With such a wide variety of free tools accessible in a few clicks, there is a huge potential for the use of NodeJS. At the same time, open-source software enjoys emerging popularity as it enables you to develop new solutions reducing the overall development cost and time to market.
Seamless JSON support
Although other back-end technologies like Ruby on Rails and PHP can use JSON format for communication, NodeJS does it without transforming between binary models and utilizes JavaScript.
This is especially handy when you have to develop RESTful APIs for NoSQL database compatibility, like MongoDB – which letter M represents in the MEAN stack. This rapid communication with one of the main data transfer standards is another benefit of using the JavaScript ecosystem.
Other Popular JavaScript Back-end Frameworks
Express
It’s one of the most used Web app frameworks based on NodeJS and one of the most utilized Web App frameworks. It is mainly utilized to build web apps and REST API. The creator of Express was inspired by the minimalistic framework Sinatra and developed it as another minimalistic framework.
Express is also known as a “framework of other frameworks.” It is less opinionated and speedy. Several frameworks are developed based on Express.
Five Key Functionalities of Express:
- Express is undoubtedly the standard JavaScript Server Side framework.
- It is the complete App framework for developments like routing, middleware, templates.
- The framework supports the MVC pattern
- Express also offers robust routing.
- Express also supports content negotiation.
Koa
The core team members of ExpressJS created Koa as a lightweight, modern, expressive, and robust middleware framework for Web Applications and APIs. Koa is hugely modular with a tiny Core with no middleware. However, middleware is available as separate modules.
Five Main Functionalities:
- Koa has a relatively smaller Core, which doesn’t include any middleware bundle.
- Koa is entirely modular and provides you with pluggable middleware Modules.
- Koa is compatible with cascading middleware in a stack-like manner, which enables it to perform actions downstream and then manipulate the response upstream.
- It uses await/async instead of callback and ES 2015; ES 2017 functionalities produce clean, expressive code with enhanced error handling.
- The framework offers slightly better performance compared to Express.js.
NextJS
Facebook’s front-end library is the most popular Web front-end library. React is opinionated and doesn’t offer an end-to-end framework. That’s why A development team from the Dutch software company Zeit has developed NextJS as an end-to-end top-level Web Framework on top of NodeJS and ReactJS. Next.js offers both Static and Server-Rendered Web sites for Desktop, Web, and Mobile devices.
Five Key Functionalities of NextJS:
- NextJS is built upon the most popular and battle-hardened Web front-end library, React.
- NextJS offers best-in-class Server-Side rendering with fast startup and exceptional SEO support.
- Like ReactJS, it also provides you with “Build once, runs everywhere,” i.e., NextJS can run on Mobile, Web, and Desktop.
- NextJS also offers filesystem-based routing and automatic code splitting.
- It is compatible with built-in CSS support and easy-to-use data fetching.
Meteor
Meteor is a full-stack JS back-end framework for developing end-to-end (backend-to-frontend) apps for mobile, web, and desktop platforms. It’s a “batteries included” framework with extensive support for production-level application development.
Five Effective Functionalities:
- It is a framework to build the complete stack: Frontend-to-Backend.
- For front-end development, it has its template engine. But Meteor can also be used in various popular front-end frameworks like React or Angular.
- It’s a cross-platform framework and can build an application for Mobile, Web, and Desktop.
- Meteor has an integrated JavaScript stack, enabling different integrating technologies with considerable effort.
- It’s an Isomorphic platform sharing the same API on the server-side and client-side.
NuxtJS
A Google Engineer back then, “Evan You” has created a beginner-friendly and simple yet powerful JavaScript front-end framework, VueJS. With time, VueJS has evolved into one of the two most popular Web frameworks. Although VueJS is more opinionated than React, it still doesn’t support comprehensive features like Ember or Angular.
A team of Software Engineers led by Sebastien Chopin and Alexandre Chopin has built NuxtJS as a higher level, end-to-end Web App framework on top of NodeJS and VueJS.
With NuxtJS, it’s possible to build Universal Applications, i.e., both Static Web pages and the Server Side rendered App. As a result, NuxtJS makes a combination of all the benefits of the Server Side rendered application with all the advantages of the VueJS reactive component model.
Five Key Functionalities of NuxtJS:
- NuxtJS is built upon the general and robust open-source Web front-end framework VueJS.
- NuxtJS provides you with Server Side rendering with extensive SEO support and quick startup.
- It also offers an “Intuitive” solution like Angular or Ember with standard directory structure, configuration, and libraries.
- NuxtJS is highly modular, with 50 standard modules supporting almost everything you need for Web Application development.
- It also supports automatic code-splitting.
Fastify
It is a minimalistic Server-Side Web Framework with an entire focus on developer experience and app performance. ExpressJS and Hapi inspired it.
Five Key Functionalities of Fastify:
- Fastify is one of the fastest Server Side frameworks. The benchmark can manage more requests per second compared to Express, Koa, Hapi, Restify.
- Because of its robust Plugin Structure, fastify is easily extensible.
- It’s also one of the few comprehensive frameworks which support both JavaScript and TypeScript.
- Fastify comprises a CLI tool for an easy and quiet startup with scaffolding and Code generation.
- Fastify offers an intuitive developer experience with its expressive and minimalistic way of development.
Scope of JavaScript in Backend Development
Following are the key reasons why JavaScript (NodeJS) won’t disappear in the near future.
- Such renowned companies like PayPal, NASA, Netflix, eBay, LinkedIn, etc., used JavaScript(NodeJS) to develop web apps.
- 43% of developers implement the aforementioned technology to build enterprise applications.
- Tech giants as Google and Microsoft invest their resources in JavaScript-based development.
- It is widely applied in state-of-the-art tech areas like data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
- It works well with server-side parts of the web application.
- It is suitable for building real-time apps thanks to its capacity to exchange data between the server and the client fast.
Wrapping Up
The information provided in this write-up would have provided you with an exceptional understanding of JavaScript’s past, present, and future in back-end web development. With a wide range of exclusive JavaScript frameworks, plugins, and development tools, you can easily implement intuitive ideas for your website’s back-end.
