Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment that allows developers to execute JavaScript code on the server side. Built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine, Node.js is designed to build scalable network applications. It uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, ideal for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
Key Features of Node.js:
Asynchronous and Event-Driven: All APIs of Node.js library are asynchronous, meaning non-blocking. It essentially means a Node.js-based server never waits for an API to return data. The server moves to the next API after calling it, and a notification mechanism of Events of Node.js helps the server to get a response from the previous API call.
Very Fast: Being built on Google Chrome's V8 JavaScript Engine, Node.js library is very fast in code execution.
Single-Threaded but Highly Scalable: Node.js uses a single-threaded model with event looping. The event mechanism helps the server to respond in a non-blocking way and makes the server highly scalable as opposed to traditional servers which create limited threads to handle requests. Node.js uses a single-threaded program and the same program can provide service to a much larger number of requests than traditional servers like Apache HTTP Server.
No Buffering: Node.js applications never buffer any data. These applications simply output the data in chunks.
License: Node.js is released under the MIT license.
Common Use Cases:
- Web Servers and APIs: Node.js is commonly used to build web servers and RESTful APIs due to its asynchronous nature.
- Real-Time Applications: Ideal for applications that require real-time interactions, such as chat applications, online gaming, and collaboration tools.
- Single Page Applications (SPA): Frameworks like React or Angular often use Node.js for server-side rendering and development tooling.
- Microservices: Its lightweight nature makes Node.js suitable for creating microservices that can scale independently.
- Task Automation: Often used in build tools, task runners, and automation scripts.
Examples of Node.js Usage:
- Netflix: Uses Node.js for its fast startup time and low memory usage.
- LinkedIn: Migrated their mobile server side to Node.js for better performance.
- PayPal: Uses Node.js to handle double the requests per second with less hardware.
Overall, Node.js has become a popular choice among developers for its performance, scalability, and the rich ecosystem of packages available through npm (Node Package Manager).
