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ExpressJS

Stacks19.2K

Followers15.4K

+ 1

Votes1.5K

Socket.IO

Stacks8.8K

Followers7.3K

+ 1

Votes774

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ExpressJS vs Socket.IO: What are the differences?

What is ExpressJS? Sinatra inspired web development framework for node.js -- insanely fast, flexible, and simple. 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.

What is Socket.IO? Realtime application framework (Node.JS server). Socket.IO enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed.

ExpressJS can be classified as a tool in the "Microframeworks (Backend)" category, while Socket.IO is grouped under "Realtime Backend / API".

Some of the features offered by ExpressJS are:

Robust routing
HTTP helpers (redirection, caching, etc)
View system supporting 14+ template engines

On the other hand, Socket.IO provides the following key features:

Real-time analytics - Push data to clients that gets represented as real-time counters, charts or logs.
Binary streaming - Starting in 1.0, it's possible to send any blob back and forth: image, audio, video.
Instant messaging and chat - Socket.IO's "Hello world" is a chat app in just a few lines of code.

"Simple", "Node.js" and "Javascript" are the key factors why developers consider ExpressJS; whereas "Real-time", "Event-based communication" and "Node.js" are the primary reasons why Socket.IO is favored.

ExpressJS and Socket.IO are both open source tools. It seems that Socket.IO with 46.9K GitHub stars and 8.54K forks on GitHub has more adoption than ExpressJS with 44.6K GitHub stars and 7.48K GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, ExpressJS has a broader approval, being mentioned in 854 company stacks & 790 developers stacks; compared to Socket.IO, which is listed in 561 company stacks and 397 developer stacks.

Advice on ExpressJS and Socket.IO

Noam Shemesh

Jul 16, 2020 | 9 upvotes · 617.7K views

Needs advice

Socket.IO

Firebase

and

Apollo

We are starting to work on a web-based platform aiming to connect artists (clients) and professional freelancers (service providers). In-app, timeline-based, real-time communication between users (& storing it), file transfers, and push notifications are essential core features. We are considering using Node.js, ExpressJS, React, MongoDB stack with Socket.IO & Apollo, or maybe using Real-Time Database and functionalities of Firebase.

Replies (3)

Timothy Malstead

Junior Full Stack Developer at Freelance · Jul 17, 2020 | 7 upvotes · 240.7K views

Recommends

Firebase

I would recommend looking hard into Firebase for this project, especially if you do not have dedicated full-stack or backend members on your team.

The real time database, as you mentioned, is a great option, but I would also look into Firestore. Similar to RTDB, it adds more functions and some cool methods as well. Also, another great thing about Firebase is you have easy access to storage and dead simple auth as well.

Node.js Express MongoDB Socket.IO and Apollo are great technologies as well, and may be the better option if you do not wish to cede as much control to third parties in your application.

Overall, I say if you wish to focus more time developing your React application instead of other parts of your stack, Firebase is a great way to do that.

Ramiro Nuñez Dosio

Nov 30, 2020 | 3 upvotes · 126.8K views

Recommends

Ably

Hello Noam 👋,

I suggest taking a look at Ably, it has all the realtime features you need and the platform is designed to guarantee critical functionality at scale.

Here is an in depth comparison between Ably and Firebase

Ilya Lazarev

PM · Jul 26, 2020 | 2 upvotes · 234.6K views

Recommends

8base

Hey Noam,

I would recommend you to take a look into 8base. It has features you've requested, also relation database and GraphQL API which will help you to develop rapidly.

Thanks, Ilya

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Pros of ExpressJS

Pros of Socket.IO

366
Simple
322
Node.js
235
Javascript
184
High performance
148
Robust routing
66
Open source
66
Middlewares
53
Great community
33
Hybrid web applications
10
Well documented
8
Sinatra inspired
5
Isomorphic js.. superfast and easy
4
Rapid development
2
Event loop
2
Socket connection
2
Npm
2
Xxx
2
Light weight
2
Resource available for learning
1
Callbacks
1
Data stream

213
Real-time
143
Event-based communication
141
Node.js
102
Open source
101
WebSockets
26
Binary streaming
22
No internet dependency
9
Fallback to polling if WebSockets not supported
8
Large community
5
Ease of access and setup
4
Push notification

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Cons of ExpressJS

Cons of Socket.IO

23
Not python
16
Overrated
14
No multithreading
6
Javascript
5
Not fast
2
Easily Insecure for Novices
1
Not a lion

11
Bad documentation
4
Githubs that complement it are mostly deprecated
3
Doesn't work on React Native
2
Websocket Errors
2
Small community

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What companies use ExpressJS?

What companies use Socket.IO?

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What tools integrate with ExpressJS?

What tools integrate with Socket.IO?

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What are some alternatives to ExpressJS and Socket.IO?

Koa

Koa aims to be a smaller, more expressive, and more robust foundation for web applications and APIs. Through leveraging generators Koa allows you to ditch callbacks and greatly increase error-handling. Koa does not bundle any middleware.

React

Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.

Flask

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

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

See all alternatives

ExpressJS vs Socket.IO

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Pros of ExpressJS

Pros of Socket.IO

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Cons of ExpressJS

Cons of Socket.IO

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