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LoopBack

288
556
+ 1
33
Sails.js

343
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+ 1
296
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LoopBack vs Sails.js: What are the differences?

Key Differences between LoopBack and Sails.js

LoopBack and Sails.js are both popular backend frameworks for building web applications. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Architecture: LoopBack is built on top of Express.js and focuses on creating RESTful APIs. It follows a model-driven development approach, where the application models are defined first and then the API is automatically generated based on these models. On the other hand, Sails.js follows the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture and provides a complete web application framework with support for features like routing, views, and ORM.

  2. Data Source: LoopBack provides a powerful data source abstraction layer that allows developers to easily switch between different datasources, such as databases, REST services, and more. This abstraction layer also includes built-in connectors for popular databases like MongoDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Sails.js, on the other hand, uses Waterline as its ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) layer, which provides a unified API for interacting with different databases, but may not have the same level of flexibility as LoopBack in terms of data source options.

  3. Authentication: LoopBack provides extensive built-in support for authentication and authorization, with features like user management, role-based access control, and token-based authentication. It also integrates with popular authentication providers like Facebook and Google. Sails.js, on the other hand, does not provide built-in authentication support out of the box, although there are community plugins available for adding authentication functionality.

  4. Real-time Features: Sails.js has a strong focus on real-time features, with built-in support for WebSockets and Pub-Sub functionality. It provides a powerful and easy-to-use mechanism for handling real-time events and broadcasting data updates to connected clients. LoopBack, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for real-time features, although it can be extended using third-party libraries or integrated with other real-time frameworks.

  5. Extensibility and Flexibility: LoopBack provides a highly extensible framework with a modular architecture that allows developers to easily customize and extend its functionality. It also provides a strong command line interface (CLI) for generating code and scaffolding applications. Sails.js, on the other hand, provides a more opinionated framework with fewer options for customization. It follows a convention-over-configuration approach and provides a set of built-in blueprints for generating RESTful APIs and CRUD operations.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Both LoopBack and Sails.js have active and vibrant communities, with a wide range of plugins, modules, and community-contributed resources available. However, Sails.js has been around for a longer time and has a larger community and ecosystem. It has been widely adopted by developers and has a mature ecosystem with a strong community support.

In Summary, LoopBack and Sails.js are both powerful backend frameworks for building web applications. LoopBack focuses on creating RESTful APIs with a model-driven approach and provides extensive support for authentication. Sails.js, on the other hand, provides a complete web application framework with MVC architecture, strong real-time features, and a larger ecosystem.

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Pros of LoopBack
Pros of Sails.js
  • 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
  • 1
    Typescript
  • 49
    Data-driven apis
  • 47
    Waterline ORM
  • 37
    Mvc
  • 32
    Easy rest
  • 25
    Real-time
  • 21
    Open source
  • 19
    Service-oriented architecture
  • 18
    Scalable
  • 10
    Convension over configuration
  • 9
    Rails-like asset pipeline
  • 9
    Node machines and machinepacks
  • 7
    Easy route/controller generation
  • 6
    Ruby on Rails basic stuff for JS devs
  • 3
    CLI for scaffolding project pieces
  • 3
    WebSocket support
  • 1
    Supportive community

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Cons of LoopBack
Cons of Sails.js
  • 7
    Community is slow
  • 1
    Backward compatibility
  • 5
    Waterline ORM
  • 4
    Defaults to VueJS
  • 0
    Standard MVC

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What is LoopBack?

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.

What is Sails.js?

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.

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What are some alternatives to LoopBack and Sails.js?
DreamFactory
DreamFactory is an open source REST API backend for mobile, web, and IoT applications. It provides RESTful web services with pre-built connectors to SQL, NoSQL, file storage systems, and web services. It's secure, reusable, and offers live API documentation.
StrongLoop
It is an American company working with Node.js to create and support StrongLoop Suite, a Mobile API Tier. StrongLoop employs two members of the Node.js Technical Steering Committee. IBM & StrongLoop contribute to and support Open-Source options for the API developer community, such as LoopBack, API Microgateway, and Open API Spec.
Parse-Server
A Parse.com API compatible router package for Express. Read the announcement blog post here: http://blog.parse.com/announcements/introducing-parse-server-and-the-database-migration-tool/. Read the migration guide here: https://parse.com/docs/server/guide#migrating
NestJS
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.
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.
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