Alternatives to Zen Cart logo

Alternatives to Zen Cart

Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, OpenCart, and WordPress are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Zen Cart.
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What is Zen Cart and what are its top alternatives?

Zen Cart is an open-source e-commerce platform that offers a variety of features such as multiple payment options, shipping options, and customizable templates. However, it has a steep learning curve for beginners and can be challenging to set up and maintain without technical knowledge.

  1. WooCommerce: WooCommerce is a popular WordPress plugin that allows users to create customizable online stores. Key features include various payment gateways, shipping options, and a wide range of extensions. Pros include easy setup and integration with WordPress. Cons include potential scalability issues for larger businesses.
  2. Shopify: Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that provides users with all the necessary tools to set up an online store. Key features include built-in payment processing, inventory management, and customizable themes. Pros include ease of use and scalability. Cons include transaction fees for using external payment gateways.
  3. BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a SaaS e-commerce platform known for its user-friendly interface and robust features. Key features include SEO optimization, mobile responsiveness, and various integrations. Pros include built-in marketing tools and excellent customer support. Cons include limited customization options for advanced users.
  4. Magento: Magento is a highly customizable e-commerce platform with a vast ecosystem of extensions and themes. Key features include advanced marketing tools, SEO capabilities, and multi-store management. Pros include flexibility and scalability. Cons include a steep learning curve and higher maintenance costs.
  5. OpenCart: OpenCart is an open-source e-commerce platform known for its simplicity and user-friendly interface. Key features include multi-store support, SEO optimization, and multiple payment gateways. Pros include ease of use and community support. Cons include limited scalability for larger businesses.
  6. PrestaShop: PrestaShop is a free, open-source e-commerce platform with a focus on usability and feature-rich functionality. Key features include customizable templates, marketing tools, and product management. Pros include a large community of users and developers. Cons include limited support options for non-technical users.
  7. Wix eCommerce: Wix eCommerce is an all-in-one website builder that includes e-commerce functionality. Key features include customizable templates, drag-and-drop editor, and built-in SEO tools. Pros include ease of use and affordable pricing. Cons include limited flexibility compared to standalone e-commerce platforms.
  8. Square Online Store: Square Online Store is a simple e-commerce solution that integrates seamlessly with Square's payment processing system. Key features include inventory management, order fulfillment, and email marketing. Pros include easy setup and integration with Square POS. Cons include transaction fees for non-Square payments.
  9. Volusion: Volusion is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that caters to small and medium-sized businesses. Key features include responsive themes, built-in SEO tools, and marketing integrations. Pros include 24/7 support and user-friendly interface. Cons include limited customization options compared to other platforms.
  10. 3dcart: 3dcart is an all-in-one e-commerce platform with a focus on SEO and marketing tools. Key features include unlimited product listings, multiple payment gateways, and customizable templates. Pros include built-in marketing features and scalability. Cons include higher pricing plans for advanced features.

Top Alternatives to Zen Cart

  • Shopify
    Shopify

    Shopify powers tens of thousands of online retailers including General Electric, Amnesty International, CrossFit, Tesla Motors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Foo Fighters, GitHub, and more. Our platform allows users to easily and quickly create their own online store without all the technical work involved in developing their own website, or the huge expense of having someone else build it. Shopify lets merchants manage all aspects of their shops: uploading products, changing the design, accepting credit card orders, and viewing their incoming orders and completed transactions. ...

  • WooCommerce
    WooCommerce

    WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin. And it's available for free. Packed full of features, perfectly integrated into your self-hosted WordPress website. ...

  • PrestaShop
    PrestaShop

    PrestaShop is written in PHP, is highly customizable, supports all the major payment services, is translated in many languages and localized for many countries, and is fully responsive (both front- and back-office). ...

  • OpenCart
    OpenCart

    It is an online store management system. It is PHP-based, using a MySQL database and HTML components. Support is provided for different languages and currencies. It is freely available under the GNU General Public License. ...

  • WordPress
    WordPress

    The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family. ...

  • Magento
    Magento

    Magento Community Edition is perfect if you’re a developer who wants to build your own solution with flexible eCommerce technology. You can modify the core code and add a wide variety of features and functionality. ...

  • Drupal
    Drupal

    Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. ...

  • Postman
    Postman

    It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide. ...

Zen Cart alternatives & related posts

Shopify logo

Shopify

12.1K
6.4K
76
Quickly and easily create a beautiful online store with Shopify.
12.1K
6.4K
+ 1
76
PROS OF SHOPIFY
  • 23
    Affordable yet comprehensive
  • 14
    Great API & integration options
  • 11
    Business-friendly
  • 10
    Intuitive interface
  • 9
    Quick
  • 3
    Liquid
  • 3
    Awesome customer support
  • 2
    POS & Mobile
  • 1
    Dummy Proof
  • 0
    Nopcommerce
CONS OF SHOPIFY
  • 1
    User is stuck with building a site from a template

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Simon Block
Founder at Der Mainbauer · | 9 upvotes · 84K views

Hi folks

We want to move on from Shopify to a headless commerce system. We want to be able to manage multiple storefronts and integrate alternative order solutions like Whats App and social commerce etc. Same time we want to avoid full blown systems with a lot of unnecessary weight. My idea for the stack, so far:

  • Spree Commerce (Shop System),
  • Bloomreach (CMS),
  • Vue Storefront (Frontend)

I will have to integrate billing solution (like Invoice Ninja), LexOffice for accounting, Optimoroute for the salesman problem, and some more. So flexibility and "easy expandability" is a core demand. Having said that I came across Medusa. It looks promising and seems to check all the boxes. Any thoughts? Basically, it's a decision between Ruby and JavaScript, is it? Can you name me pros and cons of one or both of the systems? What are the serious challenges that I will face going down either one of the roads? Is there another solution that you would highly recommend?

I've linked our shop, currently running with Shopify.

Thanks

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Deal Salt
Shared insights
on
WordPressWordPressShopifyShopify

Currently, I am using Shopify, and it's working fine somehow. I need to check the access and error logs I am able to do it. That's why thinking set up a WordPress instance on my server. I need a suggestion whether it is good or not. My current website is www.dealsalt.com, please advise.

Thanks DealSalt

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WooCommerce logo

WooCommerce

11.4K
4.7K
12
The most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin
11.4K
4.7K
+ 1
12
PROS OF WOOCOMMERCE
  • 12
    Easy to extend and customize
CONS OF WOOCOMMERCE
  • 1
    Slow if not optimized

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Samuel Webster
Principal Developer at Colart · | 7 upvotes · 293.4K views

We needed our e-commerce platform (built using WooCommerce) to be able to keep products in sync with our #pim (provided by #akeneo) which is built in Symfony . We hooked into the kernel.event_listener to send RabbitMQ messages to a WordPress API endpoint that triggers the updated product to rebuild with fresh data.

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Dan Platon
PHP Software Developer · | 5 upvotes · 209K views

I'm looking to build an eCommerce website and seeking advice from professionals on the most reliable tech stack that I can use. Currently, the website is built on top of WordPress with WooCommerce, but the company has grown up, and evidently, the number of products have been increased. The site needs a fresh code because WordPress doesn't make it anymore.

The stack I'm most familiar with is PHP + Symfony + MySQL + Apache HTTP Server or NGINX. Headless eCommerce is the one I'm looking for, because of the huge complexity, it would be great to separate the backend from the frontend. Not sure about CMSs, because they had a huge amount of functionality that the application doesn't need. I've been looking also at PrestaShop, it seems ok, but not sure about customization and front-end integration. As a custom solution, I have found Sylius or Aimeos for the backend, but I'm not too sure about a frontend stack.

Could you please give some suggestions about the frontend stack and if the ones for the backend are ok?

See more
PrestaShop logo

PrestaShop

502
195
138
Free, Open Source eCommerce Solution powering 185,000 active stores worldwide
502
195
+ 1
138
PROS OF PRESTASHOP
  • 21
    Free
  • 15
    Powerful
  • 15
    Customisable
  • 14
    Easy to understand code
  • 13
    Scalable
  • 12
    Great community
  • 11
    Easy to customize with plugins
  • 10
    Easy learning
  • 8
    Fast
  • 7
    Rich features with powerful functions
  • 4
    Feature rich
  • 4
    Learning
  • 4
    Easy to handle
CONS OF PRESTASHOP
    Be the first to leave a con

    related PrestaShop posts

    I am consulting for a company that wants to move its current CubeCart e-commerce site to another PHP based platform like PrestaShop or Magento. I was interested in alternatives that utilize Node.js as the primary platform. I currently don't know PHP, but I have done full stack dev with Java, Spring, Thymeleaf, etc.. I am just unsure that learning a set of technologies not commonly used makes sense. For example, in PrestaShop, I would need to work with JavaScript better and learn PHP, Twig, and Bootstrap. It seems more cumbersome than a Node JS system, where the language syntax stays the same for the full stack. I am looking for thoughts and advice on the relevance of PHP skillset into the future AND whether the Node based e-commerce open source options can compete with Magento or Prestashop.

    See more
    Dan Platon
    PHP Software Developer · | 5 upvotes · 209K views

    I'm looking to build an eCommerce website and seeking advice from professionals on the most reliable tech stack that I can use. Currently, the website is built on top of WordPress with WooCommerce, but the company has grown up, and evidently, the number of products have been increased. The site needs a fresh code because WordPress doesn't make it anymore.

    The stack I'm most familiar with is PHP + Symfony + MySQL + Apache HTTP Server or NGINX. Headless eCommerce is the one I'm looking for, because of the huge complexity, it would be great to separate the backend from the frontend. Not sure about CMSs, because they had a huge amount of functionality that the application doesn't need. I've been looking also at PrestaShop, it seems ok, but not sure about customization and front-end integration. As a custom solution, I have found Sylius or Aimeos for the backend, but I'm not too sure about a frontend stack.

    Could you please give some suggestions about the frontend stack and if the ones for the backend are ok?

    See more
    OpenCart logo

    OpenCart

    457
    112
    0
    A free and an open source e-commerce shopping cart system
    457
    112
    + 1
    0
    PROS OF OPENCART
      Be the first to leave a pro
      CONS OF OPENCART
        Be the first to leave a con

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        WordPress logo

        WordPress

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        • 367
          Easy to manage
        • 354
          Plugins & themes
        • 258
          Non-tech colleagues can update website content
        • 247
          Really powerful
        • 145
          Rapid website development
        • 78
          Best documentation
        • 51
          Codex
        • 44
          Product feature set
        • 35
          Custom/internal social network
        • 18
          Open source
        • 8
          Great for all types of websites
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          Huge install and user base
        • 5
          I like it like I like a kick in the groin
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          It's simple and easy to use by any novice
        • 5
          Perfect example of user collaboration
        • 5
          Open Source Community
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          Best
        • 4
          API-based CMS
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          Community
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          Easy To use
        • 2
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        CONS OF WORDPRESS
        • 13
          Hard to keep up-to-date if you customize things
        • 13
          Plugins are of mixed quality
        • 10
          Not best backend UI
        • 2
          Complex Organization
        • 1
          Do not cover all the basics in the core
        • 1
          Great Security

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        Dale Ross
        Independent Contractor at Self Employed · | 22 upvotes · 1.6M views

        I've heard that I have the ability to write well, at times. When it flows, it flows. I decided to start blogging in 2013 on Blogger. I started a company and joined BizPark with the Microsoft Azure allotment. I created a WordPress blog and did a migration at some point. A lot happened in the time after that migration but I stopped coding and changed cities during tumultuous times that taught me many lessons concerning mental health and productivity. I eventually graduated from BizSpark and outgrew the credit allotment. That killed the WordPress blog.

        I blogged about writing again on the existing Blogger blog but it didn't feel right. I looked at a few options where I wouldn't have to worry about hosting cost indefinitely and Jekyll stood out with GitHub Pages. The Importer was fairly straightforward for the existing blog posts.

        Todo * Set up redirects for all posts on blogger. The URI format is different so a complete redirect wouldn't work. Although, there may be something in Jekyll that could manage the redirects. I did notice the old URLs were stored in the front matter. I'm working on a command-line Ruby gem for the current plan. * I did find some of the lost WordPress posts on archive.org that I downloaded with the waybackmachinedownloader. I think I might write an importer for that. * I still have a few Disqus comment threads to map

        See more
        Shared insights
        on
        ElementorElementorWordPressWordPress

        hello guys, I need your help. I created a website, I've been using Elementor forever, but yesterday I bought a template after I made the purchase I knew I made a mistake, cause the template was in HTML, can anyone please show me how to put this HTML template in my WordPress so it will be the face of my website, thank you in advance.

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        Magento logo

        Magento

        3.1K
        877
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        Flexible eCommerce solutions, a vibrant extensions marketplace and an open global ecosystem
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        877
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        PROS OF MAGENTO
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          Open source
        • 14
          Robust
        • 12
          Powerful
        • 10
          Widespread community support
        • 8
          E-commerce made easy
        • 4
          Mature
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          Flexible
        CONS OF MAGENTO
        • 2
          System is too complex
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          Slow
        • 1
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        Siddhant Sharma
        Tech Connoisseur at Channelize.io · | 12 upvotes · 1.1M views

        WordPress Magento PHP Java Swift JavaScript

        Back in the days, we started looking for a date on different matrimonial websites as there were no Dating Applications. We used to create different profiles. It all changed in 2012 when Tinder, an Online Dating application came into India Market.

        Tinder allowed us to communicate with our potential soul mates. That too without paying any extra money. I too got 4-6 matches in 6 years. It changed the life of many Millennials. Tinder created a revolution of its own. P.S. - I still don't have a date :(

        Posting my first article. Please have a look and do give feedback.

        Communication InAppChat Dating Matrimonial #messaging

        See more

        I am consulting for a company that wants to move its current CubeCart e-commerce site to another PHP based platform like PrestaShop or Magento. I was interested in alternatives that utilize Node.js as the primary platform. I currently don't know PHP, but I have done full stack dev with Java, Spring, Thymeleaf, etc.. I am just unsure that learning a set of technologies not commonly used makes sense. For example, in PrestaShop, I would need to work with JavaScript better and learn PHP, Twig, and Bootstrap. It seems more cumbersome than a Node JS system, where the language syntax stays the same for the full stack. I am looking for thoughts and advice on the relevance of PHP skillset into the future AND whether the Node based e-commerce open source options can compete with Magento or Prestashop.

        See more
        Drupal logo

        Drupal

        11K
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        • 75
          Stable, highly functional cms
        • 60
          Great community
        • 44
          Easy cms to make websites
        • 43
          Highly customizable
        • 22
          Digital customer experience delivery platform
        • 17
          Really powerful
        • 16
          Customizable
        • 11
          Flexible
        • 10
          Good tool for prototyping
        • 9
          Enterprise proven over many years when others failed
        • 8
          Headless adds even more power/flexibility
        • 8
          Open source
        • 7
          Each version becomes more intuitive for clients to use
        • 7
          Well documented
        • 6
          Lego blocks methodology
        • 4
          Caching and performance
        • 3
          Built on Symfony
        • 3
          Powerful
        • 3
          Can build anything
        • 2
          Views
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          API-based CMS
        CONS OF DRUPAL
        • 1
          DJango
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          Steep learning curve

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        Hi, I am working as a web developer (PHP, Laravel, AngularJS, and MySQL) with more than 8 years of experience and looking for a tech stack that pays better. I have a little bit of knowledge of Core Java. For better opportunities, Should I learn Java, Spring Boot or Python. Or should I learn Drupal, WordPress or Magento? Any guidance would be really appreciated! Thanks.

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        Jan Vlnas
        Senior Software Engineer at Mews · | 5 upvotes · 53.2K views

        Depends on what options and technologies you have available, and how do you deploy your website.

        There are CMSs which update existing static pages through FTP: You provide access credentials, mark editable parts of your HTML in a markup, and then edit the content through the hosted CMS. I know two systems which work like that: Cushy CMS and Surreal CMS.

        If the source of your site is versioned through Git (and hosted on GitHub), you have other options, like Netlify CMS, Spinal CMS, Siteleaf, Forestry, or CloudCannon. Some of these also need you to use static site generator (like 11ty, Jekyll, or Hugo).

        If you have some server-side scripting support available (typically PHP) you can also consider some flat-file based, server-side systems, like Kirby CMS or Lektor, which are usually simpler to retrofit into an existing template than “traditional” CMSs (WordPress, Drupal).

        Finally, you could also use a desktop-based static site generator which provides a user-friendly GUI, and then locally generates and uploads the website. For example Publii, YouDoCMS, Agit CMS.

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        Postman logo

        Postman

        94.4K
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          Great tool
        • 276
          Makes developing rest api's easy peasy
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          The best api workflow out there
        • 53
          It's the best
        • 53
          History feature
        • 44
          Adds real value to my workflow
        • 43
          Great interface that magically predicts your needs
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          The best in class app
        • 12
          Can save and share script
        • 10
          Fully featured without looking cluttered
        • 8
          Collections
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          Option to run scrips
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          Global/Environment Variables
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          Shareable Collections
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          Dead simple and useful. Excellent
        • 7
          Dark theme easy on the eyes
        • 6
          Awesome customer support
        • 6
          Great integration with newman
        • 5
          Documentation
        • 5
          Simple
        • 5
          The test script is useful
        • 4
          Saves responses
        • 4
          This has simplified my testing significantly
        • 4
          Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,3
        • 4
          Easy as pie
        • 3
          API-network
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          I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis
        • 3
          Mocking API calls with predefined response
        • 2
          Now supports GraphQL
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          Postman Runner CI Integration
        • 2
          Easy to setup, test and provides test storage
        • 2
          Continuous integration using newman
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          Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable
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          Runner
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          Graph
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        CONS OF POSTMAN
        • 10
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          Bloated features and UI
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        Engineering Manager at Segment · | 30 upvotes · 3M views

        We just launched the Segment Config API (try it out for yourself here) — a set of public REST APIs that enable you to manage your Segment configuration. A public API is only as good as its #documentation. For the API reference doc we are using Postman.

        Postman is an “API development environment”. You download the desktop app, and build API requests by URL and payload. Over time you can build up a set of requests and organize them into a “Postman Collection”. You can generalize a collection with “collection variables”. This allows you to parameterize things like username, password and workspace_name so a user can fill their own values in before making an API call. This makes it possible to use Postman for one-off API tasks instead of writing code.

        Then you can add Markdown content to the entire collection, a folder of related methods, and/or every API method to explain how the APIs work. You can publish a collection and easily share it with a URL.

        This turns Postman from a personal #API utility to full-blown public interactive API documentation. The result is a great looking web page with all the API calls, docs and sample requests and responses in one place. Check out the results here.

        Postman’s powers don’t end here. You can automate Postman with “test scripts” and have it periodically run a collection scripts as “monitors”. We now have #QA around all the APIs in public docs to make sure they are always correct

        Along the way we tried other techniques for documenting APIs like ReadMe.io or Swagger UI. These required a lot of effort to customize.

        Writing and maintaining a Postman collection takes some work, but the resulting documentation site, interactivity and API testing tools are well worth it.

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        Simon Reymann
        Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH · | 27 upvotes · 5.1M views

        Our whole Node.js backend stack consists of the following tools:

        • Lerna as a tool for multi package and multi repository management
        • npm as package manager
        • NestJS as Node.js framework
        • TypeScript as programming language
        • ExpressJS as web server
        • Swagger UI for visualizing and interacting with the API’s resources
        • Postman as a tool for API development
        • TypeORM as object relational mapping layer
        • JSON Web Token for access token management

        The main reason we have chosen Node.js over PHP is related to the following artifacts:

        • Made for the web and widely in use: Node.js is a software platform for developing server-side network services. Well-known projects that rely on Node.js include the blogging software Ghost, the project management tool Trello and the operating system WebOS. Node.js requires the JavaScript runtime environment V8, which was specially developed by Google for the popular Chrome browser. This guarantees a very resource-saving architecture, which qualifies Node.js especially for the operation of a web server. Ryan Dahl, the developer of Node.js, released the first stable version on May 27, 2009. He developed Node.js out of dissatisfaction with the possibilities that JavaScript offered at the time. The basic functionality of Node.js has been mapped with JavaScript since the first version, which can be expanded with a large number of different modules. The current package managers (npm or Yarn) for Node.js know more than 1,000,000 of these modules.
        • Fast server-side solutions: Node.js adopts the JavaScript "event-loop" to create non-blocking I/O applications that conveniently serve simultaneous events. With the standard available asynchronous processing within JavaScript/TypeScript, highly scalable, server-side solutions can be realized. The efficient use of the CPU and the RAM is maximized and more simultaneous requests can be processed than with conventional multi-thread servers.
        • A language along the entire stack: Widely used frameworks such as React or AngularJS or Vue.js, which we prefer, are written in JavaScript/TypeScript. If Node.js is now used on the server side, you can use all the advantages of a uniform script language throughout the entire application development. The same language in the back- and frontend simplifies the maintenance of the application and also the coordination within the development team.
        • Flexibility: Node.js sets very few strict dependencies, rules and guidelines and thus grants a high degree of flexibility in application development. There are no strict conventions so that the appropriate architecture, design structures, modules and features can be freely selected for the development.
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