Popular Node.js Frameworks
With such a demand for Node.js, this certainly has contributed much to the number of developers trying it, considering its vast amount of frameworks and libraries. They quicken our job—that is, simplify, and speed it up. Basically, frameworks save you time with pre-built features and tools useful in web development, API creation, and developing real-time apps from scratch.
Express.js
It is by far the most popular framework for Node.js. It’s a minimalistic, flexible framework that provides a robust set of features for building web and mobile applications.
Express is designed to be minimalistic, meaning it doesn’t come with a lot of built-in features out of the box. This makes it lightweight and fast, allowing you to add only the features you need.
You can easily extend Express with middleware (small pieces of code that handle specific tasks) to add functionality like routing, authentication, and error handling. Because it’s so widely used, there’s a large community of developers who contribute to its growth. This means you’ll find plenty of tutorials, plugins, and support online.
Express is perfect for building RESTful APIs, single-page applications (SPAs), and microservices. If you want a framework that gives you flexibility and control over how your app is structured, Express is a great choice.
NestJS
This one is a progressive framework for building scalable server-side applications using modern JavaScript/TypeScript. It’s inspired by Angular, another popular front-end framework, and follows a modular architecture.
Its popularity grows due to the encouragement to organize code into modules, making it easier to maintain and scale as an application grows. Unlike Express, NestJS comes with many built-in features like dependency injection, validation, and testing tools, which can save you time. While you can use plain JavaScript with NestJS, it’s optimized for TypeScript, which provides type safety and better tooling.
What is Node.js used for with NestJS? The framework is ideal for building large-scale enterprise applications where structure, scalability, and maintainability are important. If you’re working on a project that requires a well-organized codebase and advanced features, NestJS is a great option.
Koa.js
Created by the same team behind Express.js, it’s a smaller, more expressive framework that aims to be even more lightweight and modular than Express.
It fully embraces async/await syntax, making asynchronous code easier to read and write. Like Express, Koa is minimalistic but takes that concept even further. It doesn’t include any middleware by default, giving you complete control over what features you add to your app.
Unnecessary features can really bog you down when you try focusing on custom solutions.
If you’re comfortable building your middleware and prefer a minimalist approach, Koa might fit you since it's a highly customizable and lightweight framework.
Meteor
Meteor is a full-stack JavaScript platform that allows you to build both the client and server side of your application using Node.js. It’s particularly known for its ability to create real-time, reactive applications.
As a result, sharing code between the client and server is a breeze. The same goes for building real-time applications like chat apps or live notifications thanks to built-in support for WebSockets.
When you make changes to your code, you see the result immediately, because the tool automatically reloads the page, allowing you to see the results instantly.
Meteor is a great choice if you’re building a real-time or a single-page application (SPA) that needs to update in real-time. If you want a framework that handles both the front end and back end, Meteor is worth exploring.
Hapi.js
It is a powerful framework for building APIs and web applications. It’s known for its configurability and strong focus on security. The configuration-based approach means you define how your app should behave through configuration objects rather than writing a lot of code.
It includes built-in security features like input validation, rate limiting, and protection against common web vulnerabilities (like XSS and CSRF). Hapi is designed to handle large-scale applications and is used by companies like PayPal and Walmart.
Hapi is a great choice if you’re building an API that needs to be secure and scalable. If you prefer a configuration-driven approach and need strong security features, Hapi is worth considering.
Sails.js
This one is an MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework for Node.js that’s inspired by Ruby on Rails. It’s designed to help you build data-driven applications quickly.
We all know how hard it is to manage large apps. With the MVC pattern, you organize your code into models, views, and controllers.
There is built-in support for databases like MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and more. It also includes features like blueprints (auto-generated REST APIs) and sockets for real-time communication. So you save time when scaffolding an app in a whisper: you begin building features immediately and not the underlying infrastructure.
If your primary task is building a data-heavy application that needs to interact with multiple databases, Sails.js is a great choice. Especially if your skillset includes the MVC pattern. Moreover, the framework is a solid choice to handle a lot of the boilerplate.