Many skilled web developers use Node.js to boost their back-end development while still using the same tried-and-true language – JavaScript. Big enterprises also recognize Node as the perfect language for building dynamic websites. This allows them to utilize JavaScript not only on the front-end but also on the back-end.
No matter if you’re currently looking for the best language for your project or just want to find out more about companies using Node.js, after reading this article you will feel inspired. Let’s talk about Node!
What is Node.js?
Node.js is an open-source JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a browser. It was built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine with scalability in mind. It is perfect for lightweight and fast real-time web applications. So what is so interesting about Node.js that attracts more and more companies? Well, it’s amazing for creating collaboration tools, chats, social media applications and many more. What is more, according to Stackoverflow, Node.js is among the most popular technologies.
What is Node.js best suitable for?
Real-time web applications
Real-Time Web Application Development is not the same as mobile application development. The company or brand must develop a cross-platform hybrid application with limited functionality. It used a real-time web application to create the massive social platforms Twitter and Facebook. It used a real-time web application.
Streaming applications
Application streaming is a model for on-demand software delivery that takes advantage of the fact that most applications only require a small portion of their total program code to run. Like progressive downloads in video or audio, application streaming is entirely transparent for the end-user. The server sends the client just enough information to get it started, and the remainder is streamed to the client in the background while the end-user is working. Application streaming employs the Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and is frequently used in tandem with desktop virtualization.
Messaging apps
We all have private conversations that we want to keep just that way! Whether it's an embarrassing anecdote, office gossip, or opening up about your feelings, the last thing you want is for someone to view your messages or have them used to display your adverts. Unless you use an encrypted messaging app, you're leaving everything exposed.
Chat programs
Any company's long-term success depends on its ability to provide excellent customer service. Customers aren't synonymous with sales. They're also a fantastic opportunity for people to find out more about your services or products. When it comes to your website, delivering excellent customer service strengthens your relationship with your clients and aids in the expansion of your customer base. One of the difficulties customers have when shopping online is being cut off from someone who can answer their queries accurately and quickly. Businesses can avoid this issue by adopting live chat software to provide an engaging experience for customers.
Social media apps
Social media app culture has reached new heights in the era that we have officially entered. The list of social media applications includes a profusion of names that users like, ranging from becoming the most popular communication platform to fixing the issue of information sharing. In 2022, new social media platforms will evolve and disrupt the existing method of adding and texting relationships. In 2022, the most significant social media applications will focus on improving the user experience to make these apps a safe and private platform for networking for various purposes.
Virtual emulators
Virtual machines use CPU self-virtualization to the extent that it exists by providing the actual hardware with a virtualized interface. Instead of delegating some tasks to a hypervisor in charge of the virtual container, emulators simulate hardware without relying on the CPU's ability to run code directly.
Multiplayer games
The majority of us enjoy excellent multiplayer games. The best mobile multiplayer games come in various genres and genuinely demonstrate the platform's potential. Multiplayer racing games like Mario Kart Tour and Asphalt 9: Legends demonstrate that mobile offers a wide range of racers. Multiplayer shooters like PUBG Mobile and Fortnite demonstrate that iOS and Android can provide the same intense experiences as PC.
Collaboration tools
Online collaboration tools are online apps, software programs, and platforms that enable organizations and their employees to expedite the creative process and collaborate more effectively and efficiently. Managers and staff can use team collaboration technologies to assign tasks, track progress, report on outcomes, and improve workflows and communication internally and externally. Project management applications, remote conferencing platforms, digital asset management systems, web-based tracking tools, and messaging apps are all popular business communication tools.
Application programming interface (API)
Businesses can make their data and functionality available to third-party developers, commercial partners, and internal departments through an application programming interface or API. A documented interface allows services and products to communicate and leverage one another's data and functionality. Developers aren't required to understand how an API works; they use the interface to communicate with other products and services. API usage has skyrocketed in the last decade, and many of today's most popular web applications would be impossible to create without them.
Benefits of using Node.js
Before we start talking about the companies using Node as their primary back-end technology, let’s discuss some of the advantages they recognized in the language.
Faster time-to-market
For entrepreneurs, time is money. They must work tirelessly during the first few months to iterate, test, deploy, and deliver. Node.js is especially useful for shortening the time-to-market cycle.
The first is that lightweight technology can significantly shorten application development time while providing the same functionality. With Node, you can swiftly get from concept to product. Second, simple deployments allow you to receive immediate feedback from the production environment.
It's easy to learn
The learning curve for Node.js is not steep. Coding in Node.js is relatively simple once you've mastered the fundamentals of JavaScript and Object-Oriented Programming. It's enough to get started. The most challenging aspects are remembering the client-server model and keeping up with the Node's asynchronous flow. On GitHub, you'll find many interactive courses, tutorials, and examples that can make learning a breeze.
Scalability
One of Node's most important advantages for startups that plan to expand over time is its scalability. Scalability is built into the foundation of Node.js. App-based entrepreneurs use it to build light, fast systems with excellent real-time responses that can be scaled up later and quickly add new modules to existing ones. Load balancing and the ability to manage many concurrent connections are two factors that contribute to a node's scalability. In addition, Node applications can scale both vertically and horizontally.
MVP development
Before you depart, you should get ready. Node.js enables the rapid creation of an MVP, or minimum viable product, which contains only enough features to allow the product to enter the market and satisfy the initial customers. The MVP stage is critical in the development of a full-fledged application. Due to limited resources and timescales, it is necessary to swiftly validate the marketability of the product's idea with the least amount of effort, investment, and resources, as well as to ensure that the product is favorably received before investing additional money in development.
Battle-tested
Don't be concerned about Node.js's relative inexperience. Many companies using Node.js for their products have skyrocketed, with industry titans such as PayPal, Netflix, and eBay jumping on board. Without a doubt, Node.js is a mature and well-tested tool that will not be neglected or abandoned anytime soon.
Simple and effective
Before launching a product, entrepreneurs wear multiple hats and confront numerous hurdles. It's no surprise that people want to make their lives simpler. When they use Node.js, they like how easy it is to share a single language on the server and client sides and how they don't have to go back and forth between them. Node.js applications require fewer files and code than those created in alternative front-end and back-end languages. You may also reuse and share code between the front-end and back-end sections of your program, which will help you save time during development. Everything is in one place: one code, one deployment.
Large community
A thriving community entails a lot of assistance and feedback. A thriving Node.js community can help you avoid spinning the wheel again, as they have produced numerous valuable tools and instruments that speed up development. The world's largest and fastest-growing software registry is NPM, Node's package ecosystem. It has a lot of libraries and reusable templates that you can use to add more value to your work with less effort and time. There is a module for practically anything you can think of in the NPM ecosystem.
Big companies using Node.js
Do you want to know which of the popular names make use of Node’s concurrency, speed and intensive data exchange opportunities? Read on.
NASA
A company that doesn’t have to be introduced. In this case, Node.js usage is of greater importance than in other cases. The NASA application is focused on keeping astronauts safe during their space expeditions. After an accident in which one of the astronauts nearly lost his life, NASA faced a challenge of moving all data of EVA spacesuits to a single cloud database. They adapted Node.js which helped to decrease the number of procedural steps from 28 to 7!
“The system he is creating uses a microservices architecture with separate APIs and applications built in Node.js to move data related to the EVA spacesuits from three separate legacy databases to a cloud database. Now users can query that one database for everything, reducing the time to access a comprehensive set of data by about 300 percent.” ~ Node.js Foundation case study
Benefits:
- single database
- the access timelines reduced by 300%
- less procedural steps
Netflix
With over 130 million subscribers from all around the world, this biggest streaming media and VOD provider switched their backend from Java to Node.js. They needed a scalable solution that would be able to handle both 1 billion hours of weekly video streaming and all the requests. Leveraging a fast and lightweight platform like Node.js allowed Netflix to reduce startup time by 70%.
Benefits:
- shorter built time
- lighter, faster and more modular application
PayPal
In 2013, PayPal decided to migrate from Java to Node.js. This resulted in 200ms faster page response time and double the number of requests that can be handled per second. Since the development teams were once divided into those who wrote browser-specific code and those who write app layer-specific code, Node.js was an ideal solution. It brought the much-needed cohesiveness and resolved issues at both ends.
"Node.js helps us solve this by enabling both the browser and server applications to be written in JavaScript. It unifies our engineering specialties into one team which allows us to understand and react to our users’ needs at any level in the technology stack." ~ Jeff Harrell, Senior Director of Payments Products and Engineering at PayPal
Benefits:
- the average response time reduced by 35%
- the serving of pages increased to 200ms
- 30% less code and 40% reduction in lines
Uber
Uber is the world’s famous platform connecting cab drivers to their customers. Their app was engineered utilizing some of Node.js tools and programming languages. Although they’re constantly introducing new technologies, Node.js remains their base as it allows fast scaling. Worth adding is that Uber was one of the first companies that utilized Node.js.
“One of the things that make Node.js uniquely suited to running in production is that you can inspect and change a program without restarting it. So very few other languages offer that capability. Not a lot of people seem to know that ability exists, but indeed you can inspect and even change your program while it’s running without restarting it.” ~ Matt Ranney, Senior Staff Engineer at Uber
Benefits:
- great processing power
- gained an open-source community
A platform serving over 63 million users in 2011 decided to make a switch from Ruby on Rails to Node.js. By doing so, developers were able to move from synchronous to asynchronous even system. This resulted in a boost in performance and scalability.
“We use a ton of technologies at Linkedin, but for the mobile server piece, it’s entirely Node-based. One reason was scale. The second is, if you look at Node, the thing it’s best at doing is talking to other services. The mobile app has to talk to our platform API and database. We’re not doing massive data analytics. Node showed us huge performance gains compared to what we were using before, which was Ruby on Rails.” ~ Kiran Prasad, VP of Product at Linkedin
Benefits:
- reducing the number of servers from 15 to 4
- double the traffic capacity
- app working 2-10 times faster
Yahoo
Yahoo started utilizing Node.js less than a year after Node’s initial release in 2009. In 2016 Yahoo became a part of Node.js Foundation. Ever since a lot of Yahoo’s new products are SPAs or sites using Node.js. Yahoo’s blog confirms that 75% of its web applications are Node-powered.
“Initially, we used it for performing simple backend tasks like file upload. Since then, Node.js has become one of the top programming languages for developing new front-end applications at Yahoo.”
Benefits:
- increase in performance
Trello
A project management tool used by over 25 million people worldwide and Selleo is one of them. Trello uses Node.js for its server-side and as a prototyping tool for building single-page applications.
“The server side was built with Node.js. Node.js was helpful when the company was templating a tool for a one-page application. By the time the company had finished the prototype, they decided to stick with Node also at the server side of the application.” ~ Node.JS company blog
Benefits:
- event-driven, non-blocking server
- ability to hold many open connections for instant updates
eBay
eBay needed to have a real-time application to maintain live connections with the server together with a great solution that could handle a huge number of eBay-specific services. Among many features of Node.js they mention: performance, scalability, speed, simplicity, full control and feeling of transparency.
_"Now we had our Node.js web service running in various stable environments. This whole deployment setup was quicker and simpler than we had expected. We had two primary requirements for the project. The first was to make the application as real-time as possible–i.e., maintain live connections with the server. The second was to orchestrate a huge number of eBay-specific services that display information on the page–i.e., handle I/O-bound operations." _ ~ eBay tech blog
Benefits:
- faster and more reliable application
- single threading
- transparent processes
Groupon
With Ruby on Rails, Java and PHP getting harder to maintain, Groupon decided to rebuild their web layer on Node.js. Their year-long moving project has become one of the largest production deployments of Node.js.
“Here at Groupon we believe that open collaboration is what leads to real innovation in the technology community. As I quoted in the press release Node.js infrastructure has been extremely important to us and is core to our platform.” ~ Sri Viswanath, CTO and senior vice president of engineering at Groupon
Benefits:
- 50% faster platform
- more stability and capability to handle big amounts of traffic
- smooth and flexible
Walmart
With a $481.32 billion global net sales in 2017, Walmart decided to use Node.js despite it being a young technology. They redeveloped their mobile app to provide advanced features to customers. Node’s famous asynchronous I/O brought great effects, excellent UI and security.
Benefits:
- new plugins and NPM packages
- precise results
- capable of using SmartOS
If you want to learn more about it, watch this talk by Alex Grigoryan.
Summary
Besides those companies mentioned above, the amazing features of Node.js were also recognized by Medium, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla. With its growing popularity, more and more enterprises will experiment with this simple yet performant JavaScript environment.
