What is Node.js? Features of Node.js

Whenever a discussion arises about the best runtime environments, the name Node.js always stands on a higher pedestal. It is one of the most well-known and largely used runtime environments globally.

Node.js is a server-side platform built on Google Chrome's JavaScript Runtime. First developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009, the language quickly gained popularity and currently working on version v18.7.0.

Node.js is used to build fast and scalable network applications. Node applications are always written in JavaScript and always run within the Node.js Runtime on OS like Microsoft Windows and Linux.

Node.js also includes a rich library of various JavaScript modules, simplifying the overall web application development process. To explain it further, let's present it like an equation.

Node.js = JavaScript Library + Runtime Environment + Scalable Functions.

Hence, one of many use cases of Node.js is its compatibility with Big Data and Power BI services. So, analytical companies are also using Node.js to create advanced power bi data analysis and ETL solutions.

The market size of Node.js

In the past two decades, Node.js has seen exponential growth in its demand and popularity. And the number is expected to break all expectations in the future. Till now, Node.js has been used by 1.2% of all websites on the internet, almost 20 million total sites across the internet, according to a report by W3Techs.

Moreover, Node.js has already surpassed the 1 billion dollar mark, and the prediction goes nowhere but up.

Read Also - 6 reasons why you should use Power BI for businesses.

Features of Node.js

Now, as we know what is node.js, we will discuss some basic features of node.js given below:

Fast Processing

As stated before, it is built over Google Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine, so its library is very fast in code execution. When data travels as different streams, processing that data can consume a lot of time. Therefore, NodeJS saves the time that goes into processing data by processing a file simultaneously while it is being uploaded.

Cross-Platform

Move aside java, Node.js is not only a Cross-Platform but when developed with the correct structure, it can be packaged into an executable containing all its own dependencies.

Object-Oriented

In the past, there were huge complaints against node.js as it was down to its JavaScript heritage, but with the introduction of Coffee Script and TypeScript frameworks, this issue was resolved to a greater extent.

Asynchronous and Event-Driven

All the APIs in Node are Asynchronous, which means they are non-blocking, which also introduces the fact that the Node.js server never waits for an API to return data.

No Buffering

A very important feature is that Node.js applications never buffer any data. The application simply returns the data in chunks and prevents any data loss or processing lag.

This makes Node.js an ideal language for big data analytics. Companies like Kockpit Analytics are using the full potential of Node.js programming for best-in-class data visualization, data warehousing, Power BI services, and dashboarding experience.

Over 600,000 free open source Packages on NPM

Node.js has a vast community with an enormous and huge number of permissive and open source projects that are available to help you save time. The advantage of having a larger community is that developers can seek help from community members to get responses to their queries instantly.

The Node.Js community actively interacts on platforms such as GitHub, StackOverflow, and Reddit. The community has also played a vital role in developing excelling frameworks like Derby, Meteor, Express.js, Koa.js, and Sails.js.

Sockets and two-way Data Binding

As we know, most of the web is based on the system of request and response, which means if we ask for a page, then the server sends us a page. Sockets allow a server to broadcast messages to all clients connected to a specific group. If one of the users changes some data, all the other users can also be updated in a few milliseconds.

While other languages have socket libraries, Node.js has an advantage because of its event-driven, non-blocking architecture, which also makes it ideally suited to handle sockets. Node.js was the first to do it well and still does it better than any other framework.

Below is an image that tells Node.js users that is when and how Node.js Should be used.

As shown in the figure, Node.js is used widely in almost every vertical, or we can say Node.js is the future from Data Streaming to Rest API it is used widely.

Compatibility with ES6

ES6 or ECMAScript 6 is newer a version of JavaScript that was presented in 2015. It is a standardized scripting language for JavaScript that is compatible with Node.js. It allows the runtime environment to work faster, enables easy importing, and also compresses & streamlines the node.js code.

Conclusion

To leave you with a thought, Node.js provides great options for real-time development programs. It can be used for a variety of different applications, including building big data analytics and power bi analytics solutions.

Kockpit Analytics is one of the best data analytics companies in Delhi NCR, using Node.js and other technologies to deliver user-friendly, fast, and simple big data analytics services and ETL solutions.