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  1. Stackups
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  4. Microframeworks
  5. LoopBack vs NestJS

LoopBack vs NestJS

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

LoopBack
LoopBack
Stacks285
Followers556
Votes33
GitHub Stars13.2K
Forks1.2K
NestJS
NestJS
Stacks2.7K
Followers3.0K
Votes326
GitHub Stars73.3K
Forks8.1K

LoopBack vs NestJS: What are the differences?

LoopBack vs NestJS

LoopBack and NestJS are both popular frameworks used for building backend applications. While they have similarities, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Architecture: LoopBack is a framework that follows a model-driven approach, emphasizing the use of models and data sources to build APIs. NestJS, on the other hand, is an opinionated framework that follows a modular architecture concept, using decorators and dependency injection for building scalable and maintainable applications.

  2. Language Support: LoopBack primarily focuses on JavaScript, with support for TypeScript as well. NestJS, on the other hand, is built specifically for TypeScript, providing strong typing and compile-time checking, which can lead to more robust applications.

  3. Community and Ecosystem: LoopBack has a larger community and an extensive ecosystem of plugins and extensions. It is backed by IBM and has been around for a longer time, which means it has a more mature ecosystem. NestJS, while relatively new, is gaining popularity rapidly and has a growing community and ecosystem.

  4. Scalability: LoopBack provides out-of-the-box support for creating REST APIs and real-time applications with WebSockets. It also has built-in support for caching and clustering, which can help with scalability. NestJS, on the other hand, leverages the power of TypeScript decorators and dependency injection to provide a scalable and highly modular architecture.

  5. Database Support: LoopBack has a built-in ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) called LoopBack Datasource Juggler that supports various databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and more. NestJS, on the other hand, is agnostic to databases and can work with any database of your choice, thanks to the use of decorators and dependency injection.

  6. Learning Curve: LoopBack has a steeper learning curve due to its model-driven approach and the need to understand its concepts and conventions. NestJS, on the other hand, has a more intuitive and developer-friendly syntax, especially for those who are already familiar with TypeScript and Angular.

In summary, LoopBack is a model-driven framework with strong support for JavaScript and TypeScript, while NestJS is an opinionated framework built specifically for TypeScript, following a modular architecture concept. LoopBack has a larger community and ecosystem, while NestJS offers a more intuitive syntax and easier scalability.

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Advice on LoopBack, NestJS

juan9222
juan9222

Jul 25, 2020

Needs advice

Hi there, I'm deciding the technology to use in my project.

I need to build software that has:

  • Login
  • Register
  • Main View (access to a user account, News, General Info, Business hours, software, and parts section).
  • Account Preferences.
  • Web Shop for Parts (Support, Download Sections, Ticket System).

The most critical functionality is a WebSocket that connects between a car that sends real-time data through serial communication, and a server performs diagnosis on the car and sends the results back to the user.

616k views616k
Comments
Louai
Louai

Full Stack Web Developer

May 15, 2020

Needs adviceonNode.jsNode.jsTypeScriptTypeScriptExpressJSExpressJS

I'm planning with a small team to create an application which is a platform for restaurants. I'm on the backend almost alone currently. I'm going to use Node.js for that, and I'm very fond of TypeScript, and I worked before mostly with ExpressJS. The team may get bigger as the application becomes bigger and more successful, so I have the Scalability concern in mind now, and I was considering these options:

  1. Use Node+Express+Typescript
  2. Use Node+NestJs (which utilizes Typescript by default)

Option 2 is enticing to me because recently I came to love NestJS and it provides more scalability for the project and uses Typescript in the best way and uses Express under the hood. Also I come from an Angular 2 background, which I think is the best frontend framework (my opinion, and I know React quite well), which makes Nest feel familiar to me because of the similarity between Nest and Angular. Option 1 on the other hand uses Express which is a minimalist framework, very popular one, but it doesn't provide the same scalability and brings decision fatigue about what to combine with it and may not utilize Typescript in the best way. Yet, on the other hand, it is flexible and it may be easier to manipulate things in different ways with it. Another very important thing is that it would be easier in my view to hire Node developers with skills in Express than NestJs. The majority of Node developers are much more familiar with JavaScript and Express.

What is your advice and why? I would love to hear especially from developers who worked on both Express and Nest

549k views549k
Comments
Slimane
Slimane

Jul 9, 2020

Needs adviceonSpring BootSpring BootNestJSNestJSNode.jsNode.js

I am currently planning to build a project from scratch. I will be using Angular as front-end framework, but for the back-end I am not sure which framework to use between Spring Boot and NestJS. I have worked with Spring Boot before, but my new project contains a lot of I/O operations, in fact it will show a daily report. I thought about the new Spring Web Reactive Framework but given the idea that Node.js is the most popular on handling non blocking I/O I am planning to start learning NestJS since it is based on Angular philosophy and TypeScript which I am familiar with. Looking forward to hear from you dear Community.

917k views917k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

LoopBack
LoopBack
NestJS
NestJS

A highly-extensible, open-source Node.js framework that enables you to create dynamic end-to-end REST APIs with little or no coding. Connect to multiple data sources, write business logic in Node.js, glue on top of your existing services and data, connect using JS, iOS & Android SDKs.

Nest is a framework for building efficient, scalable Node.js server-side applications. It uses progressive JavaScript, is built with TypeScript (preserves compatibility with pure JavaScript) and combines elements of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), FP (Functional Programming), and FRP (Functional Reactive Programming). Under the hood, Nest makes use of Express, but also, provides compatibility with a wide range of other libraries, like e.g. Fastify, allowing for easy use of the myriad third-party plugins which are available.

A brand new core; OpenAPI spec driven REST API; GraphQL support
Extensible - Gives you true flexibility by allowing use of any other libraries thanks to modular architecture.; Versatile - An adaptable ecosystem that is a fully-fledged backbone for all kinds of server-side applications.; Progressive - Takes advantage of latest JavaScript features, bringing design patterns and mature solutions to node.js world.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
13.2K
GitHub Stars
73.3K
GitHub Forks
1.2K
GitHub Forks
8.1K
Stacks
285
Stacks
2.7K
Followers
556
Followers
3.0K
Votes
33
Votes
326
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 11
    Need a nodejs ReST-API, DB, AAA, Swagger? Then loopback
  • 9
    Easy Database Migration
  • 6
    Code generator
  • 4
    The future of API's
  • 2
    GraphQL
Cons
  • 7
    Community is slow
  • 1
    Backward compatibility
Pros
  • 54
    Powerful but super friendly to work with
  • 42
    Fast development
  • 40
    Easy to understand documentation
  • 36
    Angular style syntax for the backend
  • 32
    NodeJS ecosystem
Cons
  • 10
    Difficult to debug
  • 10
    User base is small. Less help on Stackoverflow
  • 5
    Angular-like architecture
  • 3
    Javascript
  • 3
    Updates with breaking changes
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
TypeScript
TypeScript
ExpressJS
ExpressJS
StrongLoop
StrongLoop
GraphQL
GraphQL
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to LoopBack, NestJS?

Node.js

Node.js

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.

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.

Django

Django

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

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.

.NET

.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

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.

ExpressJS

ExpressJS

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.

Symfony

Symfony

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

Spring

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

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.

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