Node.js vs React: What are the differences?

Developers describe Node.js as "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. On the other hand, React is detailed as "A JavaScript library for building user interfaces". 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.

Node.js belongs to "Frameworks (Full Stack)" category of the tech stack, while React can be primarily classified under "Javascript UI Libraries".

"Npm", "Javascript" and "Great libraries" are the key factors why developers consider Node.js; whereas "Components", "Virtual dom" and "Performance" are the primary reasons why React is favored.

Node.js and React are both open source tools. It seems that React with 132K GitHub stars and 24.5K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Node.js with 35.5K GitHub stars and 7.78K GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Node.js has a broader approval, being mentioned in 4104 company stacks & 4042 developers stacks; compared to React, which is listed in 3224 company stacks and 3094 developer stacks.