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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
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  4. Frameworks
  5. JavaScript vs Node.js

JavaScript vs Node.js

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Node.js
Node.js
Stacks200.4K
Followers164.5K
Votes8.5K
GitHub Stars114.1K
Forks33.7K
JavaScript
JavaScript
Stacks392.2K
Followers284.0K
Votes8.1K

JavaScript vs Node.js: What are the differences?

What is JavaScript? Lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions. JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

What is Node.js? A platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. 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.

JavaScript and Node.js are primarily classified as "Languages" and "Frameworks (Full Stack)" tools respectively.

"Can be used on frontend/backend", "It's everywhere" and "Lots of great frameworks" are the key factors why developers consider JavaScript; whereas "Npm", "Javascript" and "Great libraries" are the primary reasons why Node.js is favored.

Node.js is an open source tool with 35.5K GitHub stars and 7.78K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Node.js's open source repository on GitHub.

According to the StackShare community, JavaScript has a broader approval, being mentioned in 5086 company stacks & 6486 developers stacks; compared to Node.js, which is listed in 4104 company stacks and 4042 developer stacks.

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Advice on Node.js, JavaScript

Mohammad
Mohammad

Oct 28, 2019

Needs adviceonNode.jsNode.jsLaravelLaravelPHPPHP

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
Mike
Mike

Enterprise Architect at Warby Parker

Dec 22, 2019

Decided

When I was evaluating languages to write this app in, I considered either Python or JavaScript at the time. I find Ruby very pleasant to read and write, and the Ruby community has built out a wide variety of test tools and approaches, helping e deliver better software faster. Along with Rails, and the Ruby-first Heroku support, this was an easy decision.

258k views258k
Comments
Aleksandr
Aleksandr

Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft at Microsoft-365

Dec 23, 2019

Review

How to make your JS code faster just adding some parenthesis?

Optimize-js I will not describe this tool a lot here, because it's already good done by author on github

I just want to mention that this tool wrap up all immediately-invoked functions or likely-to-be-invoked functions in parentheses what is do a great optimization a JavaScript file for faster initial execution and parsing (based on my experience).

The performance of application where I've introduced optimize-js improved on 20% in a common (tested in Chrome and IE11).

Why it happens?

  • Clarification on Readme to the optimize-js
  • Some of Nolan thoughts on the virtues of compile-time optimizations can be found in "Parens and Performance" – counterpost

Is it maintaining now? - Unfortunately, no (but feel free to send PR)

223k views223k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Node.js
Node.js
JavaScript
JavaScript

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.

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
114.1K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
33.7K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
200.4K
Stacks
392.2K
Followers
164.5K
Followers
284.0K
Votes
8.5K
Votes
8.1K
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
Pros
  • 1670
    Can be used on frontend/backend
  • 1497
    It's everywhere
  • 1163
    Lots of great frameworks
  • 899
    Fast
  • 746
    Light weight
Cons
  • 24
    A constant moving target, too much churn
  • 20
    Horribly inconsistent
  • 16
    Javascript is the New PHP
  • 9
    No ability to monitor memory utilitization
  • 8
    Shows Zero output in case of ANY error

What are some alternatives to Node.js, JavaScript?

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

Rails

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.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Django

Django

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

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Laravel

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.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

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.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

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