Why Node.js is an ideal fit for StartUps?

Node.js is an open-source environment for app development although it is widely misunderstood as a framework. It is a runtime environment that works on multiple platforms and is built on Google’s native V8 engine with JavaScript, one of the most popular programming languages.

Its functionalities are excellent and use an event-driven, non-blocking I/O execution methodology. App developing teams prefer Node.js due to its scalable nature and its vast and active community, enabling them to get solutions to any roadblocks that could come up.

It enables fast execution, a simpler development process, and fewer errors during the development process.

Node.js is utilized for various applications such as creating real-time web apps, video streaming solutions, p2p messaging apps, social media platforms, multiplayer games, virtual emulators, collaboration tools, APIs, and more.

Anything your business needs for a solid online presence, Node.js is capable of making it a reality. However, you must have the right engineers to work on your business requirements, hence, the next task is to hire Node.js programmers that can work with you.

How is Node.js will your start-up businesses?

If you are thinking of launching a web application or developing a website for your start-up, Node.js is the best developing environment you can count on.

Here are some statistics that will help you understand how good Node.js is with web app development:

• Over 200,000 sites are created with the Node.js platform.
• Paypal, developed with Node.js, increased its monthly visitor count to 567.8 million.
• More than 90% of brands reported increased productivity after migrating to Node.js.
• Node.js reduces the page loading time by as much as 60%.

(Source)

1. Easily scalable

Many startups, build their entire server-side mobile software stack in Node.js. A lot of successful businesses recently migrated to build their stacks on Node.js. eBay, Paypal, and Groupon are some of them. 

Node.js gives unparalleled performance in developing and maintaining live server-side connections while handling multiple services with ease.

2. Low time-to-market & faster response time

Most startups go through a long process consisting of a large number of A/B tests before the product makes it to the market. However, Node.js can accelerate the process in multiple ways than one:

1. Node.js is lightweight, without compilers, JARs, or different app servers making it fast. All you need to do is code. Of course, this enables faster execution, and as a result, you get a quicker response time. Consequently, this makes development customer-driven.
2. Node.js comes with many great tools for increasing the development speed. Most of these tools have come with a lot of functionalities. 
3. There is a node package manager (NPM) that offers some helpful JS libraries enabling developers to include various elements in their coding. Consequently, the app is built fairly quickly.
4. Node.js, with time, positioned itself as one of the widely used development environments for many SaaS companies including Uber and Slack. Node.js allows the integration of your backend codes to their APIs boosting the Node.js backend with desirable features and attributes.
5. Giants like PayPal and Walmart adopted Node.js and agree that Node.js reduces the response time by at least 50% while almost doubling the number of requests handled in real-time. They all had no major issues while developing with millions of users.

3. Leaner learning curve and easy to code

Being a new language in the app development world as compared with Java or .Net frameworks Node.js is to be learned from zero by developers. This posed as a roadblock to many but due to its lean learning curve, for most developers, it took a few weeks to master the framework.

Crucially, while working on Node.js as the primary development framework, you can share the same language on the front and backend with ease. This makes the developer stress free in regard to code alteration between the two sides. 

It results in 2x speed with less expense in terms of labor to maintain the servers. Furthermore, as the code is the same for both ends, developers need to write 33% less code. 

This builds the entire platform with fewer files as compared to the case where different languages are used for the frontend and backend for deployment.

Node.js also supports micro-services within its framework and has become the norm in the latest software and web app development. Generally, this allows lean user-specific development. The salient properties of this micro-services architecture support include:

• Reduces coding time as it needs fewer lines of code.
• It boosts development speed enabling quicker feedback.
• Less involvement of risks of errors.
• Agile development and often parallel A/B testing.
• Easy to scale up as the customer base increases.

4. Great online community

Due to the above qualities and many developer-friendly properties, the wider adaptability of Node.js is growing fast. 

From an open source community with a huge number of promising startups to large global brands such as Linkedin, eBay, Walmart, Microsoft, and PayPal a sizeable chunk of professional developers from various backgrounds are adopting this architecture.  

Finally, Node.js is quickly being adopted by an ever-increasing pool of app developers which makes a great online community where you can get all of your answers to help your development process.

5. Unmatched mobile compatibility

Node.js is great for developing mobile applications. Thanks to Node.js mobile app developers now can write crucial and functional codes of responsive mobile and web apps in days.

Presently, the data density, unique design components, and functionality set combined with the growing volume of smartphone traffic increased the chances of server errors. Fixing all of them automatically slows down the mobile app development process for weeks. 

Node.js is a great solution to this. With fewer lines of code, faster development, a strong functionality set, and versatility across platforms, Node.js makes the app development workflow simple. Many apps can be built, as a result of these advantages in a short span of time.

Now, let’s take a look at the popular apps built in this framework.

Common Apps Built on a Node.js Framework

(Source)

PayPal – It is used for international money transfers or accepting payments. PayPal is a pioneer user of the Node.js framework. Notably, Node.js was not the first option by its engineers. However, after migrating to it as a prototyping development environment, the framework lived up to its name. 

Node.js comes with many advantages for this app, including fewer lines of code, a faster request processing rate, etc.

LinkedIn – It migrated from Ruby on Rails to Node.js for its unmatched scalability, performance, and speed. The advantages LinkedIn enjoyed from Node.js are double traffic handling capacity, better speed and performance, reduced expenses, etc.

NASA – The main aim of NASA is to make sure that the astronauts are safe during crucial space missions. Reducing the timeline by shifting data to one codebase was difficult for NASA. Node.js assisted to decrease the number of execution steps from 28 to 7.

NetFlix – This leading video streaming brand is a user of this Node.js framework. At first, NetFlix hit the market full-featured nature but with a few issues. The decision-makers decided to migrate the UI to Node.js to fix this challenge.