5 Reasons Why Node.js Is the Best Framework to Build an E-commerce Marketplace
JavaScript’s rising popularity has successfully brought in a lot of changes to the face of web development. The things possible with JavaScript running on the server and the browser were harder to imagine several years back. Especially when sandboxed environments like flash or Java applets were popular.
Node.js shines in real-time web applications deploying push technology over web sockets. What is so revolutionary about that? After almost 20+ years of stateless-web based request-response paradigm, we have web applications with real-time, two-way connections where both the client and server can communicate and exchange data freely.
Well, this is one reason for this massive acceptance of Node.js for e-commerce development as developing an e-commerce store is a daunting task. Selecting a back-end development technology for an e-commerce website can be one of the significant decisions any developer has to take. An e-commerce store must be user-friendly and competitive at the same time and must have the ability to adapt to the latest technologies.
While the benefits of Node.js are countless, in this article, we will discuss 5 reasons why node.js is the best framework to build an e-commerce marketplace.
What is node.js?
Node.js is an application runtime environment which allows you to write server-side applications in JavaScript. If you dig into its history, Node.js was initially written by Ryan Dahl in the year 2009. The initial release was supported by Mac OS X and Linux alone. While node.js is the standard filename extension of JavaScript code, it doesn’t refer to a particular file in this content. It is merely the name of the product.
Node.js is a packaged compilation of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine that is a widely used open source tool to develop server-side networking applications. Some of the popular brands using Node.js include Microsoft, Go daddy, Netflix, PayPal, LinkedIn, Walmart, Groupon, and Yahoo.
Why Node.js Is the Best Framework for e-commerce development
Some time ago, LAMP was the technology stack that was mostly preferred by developers. However, Node.js e-commerce development is in trend and it entices developers towards MEAN/MERN stack to create an array of e-commerce solutions.
PHP was the most popular and commonly used programming language and script. While comparing Python vs Node.JS, however, Node.js framework proved to be faster, versatile and scalable than a PHP framework. Let’s explore what makes a Node.js shopping cart special.
Leverages NoSQL database- Flexible and Fast
While other frameworks like PHP uses MySQL or other relational databases, Node.js uses NoSQL which is much faster than the former ones. Node.js is compatible with both SQL and NoSQL databases like Couch DB and MongoDB. It is also capable of executing queries from graph-based database systems like Neo4j. Its seamless compatibility with JSON (JavaScript Object notation) also makes it possible to work even without SQL. It is possible to execute the query without even switching between various database syntaxes while working for front-end and back-end entities. It uses the same syntax for web browser side, server-side and database side scripting.
MEAN stack uses MongoDB, a popular and flexible No SQL database. The components of MEAN stack are:
MongoDB (Database)
Express.js
Angular.js (client-side framework)
Node.js (server-side application framework)
Its database helps to keep the system responsive even under a heavy load. For example, updating the “likes” count on Facebook or logging of user-tracking data is queued through a caching infrastructure like ZeroMQ and later digested by a separate database batch.
