Choose the Best JavaScript Framework for Your Server-Side Development
Examining 4 of the most popular JavaScript frameworks for back-end developments in 2020
According to StackOverflow's 2020 survey, JavaScript has been the most popular language for the 8th consecutive year with 67.7% of the programmers opting for it. The major reason for this popularity is the versatility offered by JavaScript to be used for the development purposes of both client-side and server-side projects. Although JavaScript was abundantly used for client-side programming, with the introduction of Node.js new JavaScript frameworks came into existence which could be ideally used for server-side programming.
The turning point of JavaScript as a server-side programming language took place in 2009. Ryan Dahl, a young Software Engineer, created the server-side JavaScript runtime Node.js using Google’s V8 JavaScript engine and C++ libraries. Because of the success that Node.js achieved as a server-side programming language, many frameworks based on Node.js were created. It has, therefore, become challenging for programmers to choose the right framework capable of fulfilling their requirements.
This article will analyze the scope and key features of the most popular backend JavaScript frameworks in 2020 based on npm downloads and programmers’ satisfaction.
1. Express.js
As we can see in both the graphs, Express is the leader among the backend JavaScript frameworks. Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features to develop web and mobile applications. It facilitates the rapid development of Node based Web applications. Express can also be called “a framework of other frameworks” since there are many other frameworks that are built using Express. Coursera, IBM, Nike, Paypal, Sony Playstation, Twitter, Uber, and Unsplash are some of the popular websites that are built with Express.
Express was originally built by TJ Holowaychuk in 2010 and later was acquired by IBM(StrongLoop) in 2015. It is currently maintained by Node.js Foundation. The key advantage of using Express is rapid server-side coding. Complex tasks that would take hours to code using pure Node.js can be resolved in a few minutes thanks to Express.
The following are some key features offered by Express:
- Express offers a robust routing mechanism for handling highly dynamic URLs
- Add additional request processing “middleware” at any point within the request handling pipeline
- Express also makes debugging an effortless task by easily pin-pointing bugs
- It provides a templating engine to dynamically render HTML pages on the server-side rather than client-side which makes web application more efficient
- Express also supports content negotiation
Pros of using Express.js
- Express is one of the oldest frameworks and hence it has a massive community backing up. Express is said to have more than 1.5k contributors on Github
- Express has well-written documentation with plenty of tutorials and resources
- Express provides fast-paced development using Node.js
- Express offers seamless connectivity with all major popular databases like MongoDB, MySQL, and Redis
- All popular template engines like Pug, HAML, EJS, are compatible with Express
- Express is undoubtedly one of the easiest backend frameworks for newbie developers to learn thanks to simple syntax and structure
Cons of using Express.js
- Express doesn’t offer any security solutions and therefore ensuring the security of the program is entirely up to the developer himself
- The structure of Express has somewhat rigid. There isn’t a defined structured way of doing things to guide beginners. This is a disadvantage for beginners, but a fortune for experienced developers
2. Next.js
As I have discussed in my previous article, React is currently the most popular front-end JavaScript framework available. But React is unopinionated and does not offer an end-to-end framework. Therefore Next.js was created as an end-to-end server-side rendering framework based on React. Next.js was created by Dutch company Vercel(previously known as ZEIT) which was led by Tim Neutkens in 2017. A strong point about Next.js is the principle of “Build once, runs everywhere” which means that not only can you make web applications with Next.js but also mobile apps, desktop apps as well as Progressive Web Apps. Docker, Github, Hulu, Netflix, Starbucks, Tencent, and Twitch are some of the prominent websites that are built using Next.
Here are some key features of Next.js:
- Next.js is built upon the most popular, web front-end library React
- Next.js offers one of the best Server-Side renderings with exceptional SEO support and fast startup
- Next.js offers both server-rendered and static web sites for web, desktop, and mobile devices
- It also supports easy-to-use data fetching and built-in CSS support
Pros of using Next.js
- Popular tools such as React, Material-UI, Builder, Sanity, and DatoCMS are compatible to be integrated with Next.js
- Automatic server-side rendering and code splitting
- Next.js allows us to create dynamic meta tags in the head section to optimise SEO and hence delivers an excellent SEO performance
- Hot-reloading is available with Next.js — automatically reloads the page when a change is detected
Cons of Next.js
- Performance benchmarks of Next.js are in most cases inferior to its competitors
- Next.js is built specifically to work with React only
3. Nuxt.js
A group of Software Engineers led by Alexandre Chopin and Sebastien Chopin created Nuxt.js as a free and open-source web application framework based on Vue ecosystem. Nuxt is mostly used to build server-side rendered apps. Nuxt is known as an enhancer for Vue, but it cannot act as a substitute for Vue since it cannot function alone. And neither can it be considered a full-fledged backend framework like Express. Nuxt.js is a combination of official Vue libraries and components like Vue Router, Vuex, Vue server renderer and Vue meta. With Nuxt you can create 3 different kinds of web apps — Pre-rendered Static pages app, Single-page web application (SPA), as well as Server-side, rendered web applications(SSR) or universal Apps. Bootstrap Vue, Fox News, and Gitlab are some of the popular websites that used Nuxt.js for implementation.
Some key features of Nuxt are stated below:
- Nuxt is built upon the highly popular and powerful open-source front-end framework, Vue.js
- Nuxt.js offers reduced time to interactivity and improved SEO
- Nuxt.js is highly modular with around 50 standard modules supporting almost everything you need for web application development
- It also supports automatic code-splitting
Pros of using Nuxt.js
- Setting up a new project in Nuxt is pretty fast and convenient thanks to the starter template and command line
- One of the biggest advantages that Nuxt.js offers is the ability to create Universal Apps — JavaScript code that runs on both client and server-side
- Nuxt automatically organizes your code in a logical manner. The main directories set up by default are — assets, components, layouts, pages, plugins and store
- “Nuxt community” is a GitHub collection of several APIs, libraries, starter kits and modules that can be very beneficial for developers
Cons of using Nuxt.js
- Integrating custom libraries with Nuxt is complicated
- Documentation and resources are kind of scarce when compared to other frameworks
- Debugging can be quite frustrating when using Nuxt
4. Gatsby.js
Coming in at number 4 on our list is Gatsby.js. Gatsby.js was founded by Kyle Mathews and Sam Bhagwat and launched in 2015. Gatsby is a modern, flexible React and GraphQl based Static Site Generator. Unlike Next.js which we discussed above, Gatsby does not perform server-side rendering. Instead, it generates HTML content on the client-side during build time. As a result, Gatsby.js delivers blazing-fast performance, flawless security and commendable SEO performance. Another major advantage of Gatsby is the plugins that add key functionalities and modifications to make your life easier. Gatsby.js is used by major brands like Airbnb, Nike, Flamingo, Freecodecamp, and Paypal to name a few.
Some key features offered by Gatsby.js are:
- Gatsby can be used to build static sites that are Progressive Web Apps, follow the latest web standards, and are optimized to be highly performant
- It makes use of the latest and popular technologies including ReactJS, Webpack, GraphQL, modern ES6+ JavaScript and CSS and therefore most of the developers can jump in without much of a learning curve
- You can use any of the packages you’ve already been using with NPM, particularly the React ones as it’s built on the same thing. But that’s not all — there’s a large number of ever-growing plugins, starters, and transformers by the Gatsby community
Pros of using Gatsby.js
- Websites built with Gatsby.js are usually 2–3 times faster than normal websites built with other frameworks
- Static content generated by Gatsby.js is easily readable by Search engine crawlers and offers no hindrance like other JavaScript frameworks
- Gatsby offers implicit security as it does not require any server, database or dependencies
- Gatsby’s rich and extensive plugin architecture will offer you a plugin for every task that you can hope to accomplish
Cons of using Gatsby.js
- Gatsby.js is not an ideal solution for content-heavy enterprise-scale websites like e-commerce stores or media extensive websites. Build time will drastically increase as the size of content grows
- Although learning how to use Gatsby is fairly easy, a prerequisite knowledge of React and a little GraphQl is necessary
As history has shown, Javascript will continue to remain dominant in the programming community. Because of this, new JS frameworks are constantly introduced into the community with the effect of making it challenging for developers to choose the best JavaScript framework for your requirement out of dozens of options available. Every framework is unique and has its own strengths and weaknesses. Therefore as a developer, you should carefully analyze and understand the project requirements so that you can cross off the majority of your available choices. The steepness of the learning curve, complexity, compatibility, documentation, community support should also be taken into account as deciding factors apart from just performance and popularity.
Finally, I hope this article will help some of you choose the best framework to master or to use in your upcoming project. Thank you for the time spent on reading this article and happy coding! Stay safe!
