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  5. ExpressJS vs Sails.js

ExpressJS vs Sails.js

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

ExpressJS
ExpressJS
Stacks35.1K
Followers24.0K
Votes1.6K
Sails.js
Sails.js
Stacks337
Followers511
Votes296
GitHub Stars22.9K
Forks1.9K

ExpressJS vs Sails.js: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between ExpressJS and Sails.js frameworks, highlighting their key differences.

  1. Language and Compatibility: ExpressJS is a minimal, unopinionated web application framework for Node.js, making it compatible with any JavaScript backend. On the other hand, Sails.js is built on top of Express.js and provides additional features like configuration and conventions based on MVC architecture.

  2. Automatic Blueprint APIs: Sails.js has an automatic API generator called "blueprints" that allows developers to easily generate RESTful APIs based on predefined controller actions and models. ExpressJS does not provide such automatic generation of APIs, requiring developers to manually implement and configure their API endpoints.

  3. Real-time functionality: Sails.js provides built-in support for real-time communication through WebSockets and a pub/sub system called "sockets". This allows developers to easily implement real-time features like chat applications. ExpressJS, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for real-time functionality, requiring developers to use external libraries or implement their own solutions.

  4. Database Integration: While both frameworks can work with various databases, Sails.js provides a native ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) called Waterline. This ORM is agnostic to the database type and allows developers to easily switch between different databases without changing their code. ExpressJS does not come with a native ORM, requiring developers to choose and integrate a separate ORM library.

  5. Community and Ecosystem: ExpressJS has a larger and more mature community compared to Sails.js. This means that ExpressJS has a wider range of available libraries, plugins, and resources, making it easier to find solutions and get help when needed. Sails.js, being a younger framework, has a smaller and less mature community with fewer available resources.

  6. Flexibility and Extensibility: ExpressJS is known for its flexibility and minimalistic approach, allowing developers to have full control over their application's structure and architecture. This makes it easy to customize and extend ExpressJS applications according to specific project requirements. Sails.js, on the other hand, follows a convention-over-configuration approach, providing a more opinionated structure and predefined conventions. While this can speed up development by reducing the need for manual configuration, it may limit the flexibility of customization.

In summary, ExpressJS is a minimal and flexible framework with a larger community and more resources, while Sails.js provides additional features like automatic API generation, real-time functionality, and a database-agnostic ORM. The choice between the two frameworks depends on the specific needs of the project and the preference for flexibility versus predefined conventions.

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Advice on ExpressJS, Sails.js

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.

812 views812
Comments
septblast
septblast

Oct 14, 2021

Review

You must have gone through multiple thoughts on how to handle the requirement, but the biggest problem that I am able to see here is a dependency on a certain platform for executing Powershell scripts. Next is being a developer will never suggest having Powershell or bash as a backend of your system until it is related to some IoT Stuff. In place of it, I would rather suggest you use Infrastructure as a Code that comes with terraform or Ansible or as your application is based on Azure so u can use Azure Resource Manager too.

Adding to it for making config or attaching a trigger to these infrastructure controllers, you can use lightweight stateful APIs with the help of flask or express or go-mux, to keep track on the progress of deployments.

2.54k views2.54k
Comments
tornike
tornike

Feb 5, 2022

Review

Hi

I am new here . . . but for backend - I assume you implement it with NodeJS - maybe you could give try to FeathersJS Server? I have used it previously for my PHD project. It comes with support of dozens of databases. You do not need to worry about database scripts and connection routines, FeathersJS abstracts all of this for you. It implements connection with database using services. These services conform with CRUD philosophy which obviously you can customize based on your needs.

This server is well documented.

Also authors of this server claim that you will be able to deliver production grade app within days and from my experience I can say that this is true. This server should be good choice for beginner

Good luck!

76 views76
Comments

Detailed Comparison

ExpressJS
ExpressJS
Sails.js
Sails.js

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.

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.

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
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
22.9K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.9K
Stacks
35.1K
Stacks
337
Followers
24.0K
Followers
511
Votes
1.6K
Votes
296
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
  • 49
    Data-driven apis
  • 47
    Waterline ORM
  • 37
    Mvc
  • 32
    Easy rest
  • 25
    Real-time
Cons
  • 5
    Waterline ORM
  • 4
    Defaults to VueJS
  • 0
    Standard MVC
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
Grunt
Grunt
Node.js
Node.js
MySQL
MySQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
MongoDB
MongoDB
Socket.IO
Socket.IO

What are some alternatives to ExpressJS, Sails.js?

Django REST framework

Django REST framework

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

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.

Flask

Flask

Flask is intended for getting started very quickly and was developed with best intentions in mind.

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