GraalVM vs Node.js

Overview

Node.js

Stacks200.4K

Followers164.5K

Votes8.5K

GitHub Stars114.1K

Forks33.7K

GraalVM

Stacks70

Followers76

Votes0

GitHub Stars21.3K

Forks1.8K

GraalVM vs Node.js: What are the differences?

Introduction

GraalVM and Node.js are two popular platforms used for building and running applications. While both are used to execute JavaScript code, there are several key differences between them that affect their performance, compatibility, and flexibility.

Execution Environment: GraalVM is a polyglot runtime that supports multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby, and more. It provides a common runtime environment for different languages to interoperate, allowing developers to mix and match code written in different languages seamlessly. In contrast, Node.js is a runtime specifically designed for executing JavaScript code.
Performance and Efficiency: GraalVM utilizes a high-performance optimizing just-in-time (JIT) compiler called GraalVM Native Image that compiles Java bytecode to machine code ahead of time. This approach can result in faster startup times and lower memory usage compared to Node.js, which relies on a just-in-time (JIT) compilation during runtime.
Support for Ecosystem: Node.js has a well-established and extensive ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and tools specifically tailored for server-side JavaScript development. It is widely adopted and has a large community, making it easier to find resources, documentation, and community support. Although GraalVM also supports JavaScript, its ecosystem is not as mature and extensive as Node.js.
Compatibility: Node.js follows the ECMAScript (JavaScript) specifications and implements the Node.js API, allowing developers to build applications with a focus on compatibility and stability. GraalVM, on the other hand, provides additional language features and APIs that are not part of the standard ECMAScript specification. This can be both an advantage and a potential source of compatibility issues when running GraalVM-specific code on other platforms.
Language Interoperability: GraalVM's polyglot nature allows developers to integrate code written in different languages seamlessly. It enables interoperability between JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby, and other supported languages, enabling developers to leverage the strengths of different languages within a single application. Node.js focuses solely on executing JavaScript code and does not provide direct support for other languages within the same runtime environment.
Flexibility and Use Cases: GraalVM's broader language support makes it suitable for building applications that require interoperability across different programming languages. It is particularly beneficial for scenarios where specific language features or performance optimizations are required. Node.js, with its focus on JavaScript execution, is well-suited for developing server-side applications, APIs, and real-time applications that primarily rely on JavaScript.

In summary, GraalVM and Node.js differ in their execution environments, performance and efficiency, support for ecosystems, compatibility, language interoperability, and flexibility. Understanding these differences helps developers choose the right platform based on their specific requirements and use cases.

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Advice on Node.js, GraalVM

abderrahmane

Mar 12, 2020

Needs advice

I am a front-end guy and in the last month I've been trynig to be learn backend in python. I think python is a great language to but when i start to learn django I didn't like it because everythong is already done for you, you dont need to do much make it works and I like coding thing that take me time. I've been thinking about switching to another programing language or just learn Node js and stick with it. I need to know if django is that easy.

136k views136k

Comments

Mohammad

Oct 28, 2019

Needs adviceon

Node.js

Laravel

PHP

I want to create a video sharing service like Youtube, which users can use to upload and watch videos. I prefer to use Vue.js for front-end. What do you suggest for the back-end? @{Node.js}|tool:1011| or @{Laravel}|tool:992| ( @{PHP}|tool:991| ) I need a good performance with high speed, and the most important thing is the ability to handle user's requests if the site's traffic increases. I want to create an algorithm that users who watch others videos earn points (randomly but in clear context) If you have anything else to improve, please let me know. For eg: If you prefer React to Vue.js. Thanks in advance

309k views309k

Comments

Zubair

Director at Aafiyah Technologies

Mar 12, 2020

Needs advice

Hi Team

I want your suggestions in order for me to decide which stack is suitable for the below-mentioned requirement.

Currently, I am considering building it in Wordpress (Starting with prebuilt plugins and develop on it)

But I am skeptical, so I am considering Laravel.

And recently I found one very good solution built in Angular, Node and MySQL

Here are the high-level goals I am trying to achieve:

The system has 3 modules

Multi-Vendor e-commerce Market Place
Peer to peer Selling of used items
Listing/ Directory kind of portal for the service industry

290k views290k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Node.js	GraalVM
Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.	An ecosystem and shared runtime offering performance advantages not only to JVM-based languages such as Java, Scala, Groovy, and Kotlin, but also to programming languages as JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and R. Additionally, it enables the execution of native code on the JVM via LLVM front-end.
-	Polyglot - Zero overhead interoperability between programming languages allows you to write polyglot applications and select the best language for your task; Native - Native images compiled with GraalVM ahead-of-time improve the startup time and reduce the memory footprint of JVM-based applications; Embeddable - GraalVM can be embedded in both managed and native applications. There are existing integrations into OpenJDK, Node.js, Oracle Database, and MySQL
Statistics
GitHub Stars 114.1K	GitHub Stars 21.3K
GitHub Forks 33.7K	GitHub Forks 1.8K
Stacks 200.4K	Stacks 70
Followers 164.5K	Followers 76
Votes 8.5K	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 1439 Npm 1279 Javascript 1129 Great libraries 1012 High-performance 805 Open source Cons 46 Bound to a single CPU 45 New framework every day 40 Lots of terrible examples on the internet 33 Asynchronous programming is the worst 24 Callback	No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available	Oracle MySQL

What are some alternatives to Node.js, GraalVM?

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

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

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Android SDK

Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.

Phoenix Framework

Phoenix is a framework for building HTML5 apps, API backends and distributed systems. Written in Elixir, you get beautiful syntax, productive tooling and a fast runtime.

Related Comparisons

GraalVM vs Node.js: What are the differences?

Introduction

Execution Environment: GraalVM is a polyglot runtime that supports multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby, and more. It provides a common runtime environment for different languages to interoperate, allowing developers to mix and match code written in different languages seamlessly. In contrast, Node.js is a runtime specifically designed for executing JavaScript code.
Performance and Efficiency: GraalVM utilizes a high-performance optimizing just-in-time (JIT) compiler called GraalVM Native Image that compiles Java bytecode to machine code ahead of time. This approach can result in faster startup times and lower memory usage compared to Node.js, which relies on a just-in-time (JIT) compilation during runtime.
Support for Ecosystem: Node.js has a well-established and extensive ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and tools specifically tailored for server-side JavaScript development. It is widely adopted and has a large community, making it easier to find resources, documentation, and community support. Although GraalVM also supports JavaScript, its ecosystem is not as mature and extensive as Node.js.
Compatibility: Node.js follows the ECMAScript (JavaScript) specifications and implements the Node.js API, allowing developers to build applications with a focus on compatibility and stability. GraalVM, on the other hand, provides additional language features and APIs that are not part of the standard ECMAScript specification. This can be both an advantage and a potential source of compatibility issues when running GraalVM-specific code on other platforms.
Language Interoperability: GraalVM's polyglot nature allows developers to integrate code written in different languages seamlessly. It enables interoperability between JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby, and other supported languages, enabling developers to leverage the strengths of different languages within a single application. Node.js focuses solely on executing JavaScript code and does not provide direct support for other languages within the same runtime environment.
Flexibility and Use Cases: GraalVM's broader language support makes it suitable for building applications that require interoperability across different programming languages. It is particularly beneficial for scenarios where specific language features or performance optimizations are required. Node.js, with its focus on JavaScript execution, is well-suited for developing server-side applications, APIs, and real-time applications that primarily rely on JavaScript.

GraalVM vs Node.js

Overview

GraalVM vs Node.js: What are the differences?