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  1. Stackups
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  5. Echo vs ExpressJS

Echo vs ExpressJS

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

ExpressJS
ExpressJS
Stacks35.1K
Followers24.0K
Votes1.6K
Echo
Echo
Stacks346
Followers187
Votes59
GitHub Stars31.8K
Forks2.3K

Echo vs ExpressJS: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Echo and ExpressJS, two popular web application frameworks used for building server-side applications in Go and JavaScript, respectively.

  1. Routing Syntax: One of the main differences between Echo and ExpressJS lies in their routing syntax. Echo uses a structured router that allows developers to define routes using a method chaining approach, making it more concise and readable. On the other hand, ExpressJS uses a more flexible middleware-based routing system, which provides developers with more control and customization options.

  2. Performance: When it comes to performance, Echo has been found to outperform ExpressJS in certain scenarios. This can be attributed to Echo's efficient design, which is built on top of the fast and lightweight Go language. ExpressJS, on the other hand, is built on top of JavaScript, which is known for its slower performance compared to Go.

  3. Middleware Support: Echo and ExpressJS differ in the way they handle middleware. Echo follows a strict middleware stack order, where the order in which middlewares are registered affects their execution order. In ExpressJS, however, the order of middleware registration does not necessarily define the execution order, as developers have more flexibility to control the middleware flow using additional functions and methods.

  4. Template Engines: Another notable difference between Echo and ExpressJS is their approach to handling templates. Echo does not provide a built-in template engine, but it provides seamless integration with popular template engines like HTML/template and Pongo2. ExpressJS, on the other hand, comes with its own template engine called "Jade" (now known as "Pug"), which offers a concise and expressive syntax for defining HTML templates.

  5. Error Handling: When it comes to error handling, Echo and ExpressJS take slightly different approaches. Echo allows developers to define custom error handlers for specific HTTP status codes, providing more fine-grained control over error handling. ExpressJS, on the other hand, provides a more generic error handling mechanism through the use of middleware functions, which can handle errors globally or for specific routes.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Lastly, Echo and ExpressJS have different levels of community support and ecosystem maturity. ExpressJS has a larger and more established community, with a wide range of plugins, middleware, and tools available for developers. Echo, while gaining popularity, has a smaller community and a more limited ecosystem of third-party libraries and extensions.

In summary, Echo and ExpressJS differ in their routing syntax, performance, middleware support, template engine options, error handling mechanisms, and community support.

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Advice on ExpressJS, Echo

Tony
Tony

Oct 21, 2020

Review

I personally like using a wholly JS stack, with TypeORM + MySql/Postgres over MongoDb + Mongoose because TypeOrm's Typescript support is much stronger. After developing large projects with Typescript, there is no going back to regular javascript (typings help catch a LOT of errors / maintains data structure !)

Sticking with a javascript stack will allow you to share certain aspects of your application between front and backend. For example: one particularly common feature is to validate API call data and form entry data. Both of these are the same data shape typically (aside from pagination, metadata, etc), and can benefit from a single schema for validation. I use Yup to define this schema, then in the front and back end I can utilize this definition instead of rewriting the same logic in two different languages.

Same goes for certain utility functions such as data structure typings, decryption, encryption, sanitizing inputs, formatting of data, and other utilities. No point of writing these in two languages when both frontend and backend will use them. It will also help reduce developer work load, due to less tests / code to work with.

The only thing you must ensure in your import chain the frontend never imports any secret variables or sensitive logic used by the backend, as that will get bundled into your application. All shared imports should be individual modules

If you want to go one step further, next.js is basically create react app with server side rendering (SSR). This would allow you to skip the annoying step of configuring separate backend and frontend build tools. Might be worth exploring depending on your skill level.

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

ExpressJS
ExpressJS
Echo
Echo

Express is a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework, providing a robust set of features for building single and multi-page, and hybrid web applications.

It is a high performance, extensible, minimalist web framework for Go (Golang).

Robust routing;HTTP helpers (redirection, caching, etc);View system supporting 14+ template engines;Content negotiation;Focus on high performance;Executable for generating applications quickly;High test coverage
Optimized HTTP router which smartly prioritize routes; Build robust and scalable RESTful APIs; Run with standard HTTP server or FastHTTP server; Group APIs; Extensible middleware framework; Define middleware at root, group or route level; Data binding for JSON, XML and form payload; Handy functions to send variety of HTTP responses; Centralized HTTP error handling; Template rendering with any template engine; Define your format for the logger; Highly customizable
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
31.8K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
2.3K
Stacks
35.1K
Stacks
346
Followers
24.0K
Followers
187
Votes
1.6K
Votes
59
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 381
    Simple
  • 336
    Node.js
  • 244
    Javascript
  • 193
    High performance
  • 152
    Robust routing
Cons
  • 27
    Not python
  • 17
    Overrated
  • 14
    No multithreading
  • 9
    Javascript
  • 5
    Not fast
Pros
  • 11
    Easy to use
  • 10
    Highly customizable
  • 10
    Performance
  • 9
    Open source
  • 9
    Lightweight
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
Golang
Golang

What are some alternatives to ExpressJS, Echo?

Django REST framework

Django REST framework

It is a powerful and flexible toolkit that makes it easy to build Web APIs.

Sails.js

Sails.js

Sails is designed to mimic the MVC pattern of frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the requirements of modern apps: data-driven APIs with scalable, service-oriented architecture.

Sinatra

Sinatra

Sinatra is a DSL for quickly creating web applications in Ruby with minimal effort.

Lumen

Lumen

Laravel Lumen is a stunningly fast PHP micro-framework for building web applications with expressive, elegant syntax. We believe development must be an enjoyable, creative experience to be truly fulfilling. Lumen attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as routing, database abstraction, queueing, and caching.

Slim

Slim

Slim is easy to use for both beginners and professionals. Slim favors cleanliness over terseness and common cases over edge cases. Its interface is simple, intuitive, and extensively documented — both online and in the code itself.

Fastify

Fastify

Fastify is a web framework highly focused on speed and low overhead. It is inspired from Hapi and Express and as far as we know, it is one of the fastest web frameworks in town. Use Fastify can increase your throughput up to 100%.

Falcon

Falcon

Falcon is a minimalist WSGI library for building speedy web APIs and app backends. We like to think of Falcon as the Dieter Rams of web frameworks.

hapi

hapi

hapi is a simple to use configuration-centric framework with built-in support for input validation, caching, authentication, and other essential facilities for building web applications and services.

TypeORM

TypeORM

It supports both Active Record and Data Mapper patterns, unlike all other JavaScript ORMs currently in existence, which means you can write high quality, loosely coupled, scalable, maintainable applications the most productive way.

FeathersJS

FeathersJS

Feathers is a real-time, micro-service web framework for NodeJS that gives you control over your data via RESTful resources, sockets and flexible plug-ins.

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