Knowing that some of the biggest brands use Node.js to build their websites and applications is proving the reason why Node.js makes such hype. Since it was initially released in 2009, Node.js has become a gamechanger in scaling businesses for many globally recognized brands and launching them from a startup phase to a company stage faster than they could ever imagine.
Thanks to its adaptability, powerful performances, and scalability, Node.js is a common point for some of the most famous brands. It is almost impossible you haven’t already experienced it, used it, and interact with through some of it.
What is Node.js, and why use it?
Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment written in JavaScript – the world’s most popular programming language. Compared to other programming languages, such as Ruby or Python, NodeJs is several times faster, and together with the Google V8 JavaScript engine, archives with incredible speed. Node.js is a perfect option for developing fast and scalable network applications, which meet today’s high requirements and expectations over real-time information consumption.
Lightning-fast speed of processing, a variety of options for developers to test and debug the code in the virtual environment, easy to learn and use, lightweight code, a supportive community, and rich libraries with reusable templates that could be incorporated into your code is only a small piece of all the benefits NodeJS provides.
NodeJS Usage: Most frequent & suitable cases for implementing Node.JS
Using NodeJS is the best decision when a particular company requires intensive platforms, programs, or apps. Here is the list of the most frequent and suitable cases for implementing NodeJS.
- Real-time web applications
- Streaming applications
- Messaging applications
- Chat programs
- Social media applications
- Virtual emulators
- Multiplayer games
- Collaboration Tools & Software
- API
Famous Apps and Companies built/established with Node.JS
PayPal
PayPal is one of the most commonly used and reliable payment platforms globally, with more than 300 million active users. Established as the first alternative payment method that introduced internet-payments options, it supported its users to send, pay, or easily receive the payments and maintain their balances, without obligation to provide another side with credit-card details.
Since coding was separately done for the browser (using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) and server applications (using Java), the primary issue was the boundary between the browser and the server. Using different languages was the initial problem, and the solution was to start using JavaScript for writing both the browser and the server apps. Like many others, PayPal began to use NodeJs for prototyping, and after some testing, they finally switched to NodeJS completely.
The benefits NodeJs provided for PayPal:
- PayPal application was built two times faster with NodeJs, compared to a previous Java-based application.
- New NodeJs-based application doubled requests per second.
- It recorded a 35% decrease in the average response time for the same page.
- 40% fewer files and 33% fewer lines of code.
Netflix
With its innovative business model, Netflix has become the world’s greatest provider for streaming media and on-request videos. According to Statista.com, Netflix had 195.15 million paid subscribers in 190 countries worldwide.
Although Netflix already has developed a stable and multi-featured application at the moment the number of users started to increase, they decided to use their existing interface and improve it with Node.js making it lighter, less complex, and more user-friendly.
The benefits Node.js provided for Netflix:
- Increased customization level for users
- 70% decrease in time needed to start a new application
- Simplified processes of development
UBER
Uber is another innovative startup idea that changed the means of transport & taxi services and spread worldwide quickly. Since it was established in 2009, UBER has been doubling in size every six months. Operating on six continents and providing 5.7 million drives on average monthly, it is clear that Uber’s app processes vast amounts of information in real-time and requires a platform that will support all of the data-flow.
Choosing Node.js provided Uber the ability to build a massive information matching system for driver-partners and riders, enabling Uber to achieve an impeccable user experience level and expand its business fast.
The benefits Node.js provided for UBER:
- Processing of vast amount of data quickly and reliably.
- Fast deployment of the new code.
- Strong open source community that constantly develops new solutions
Linkedin is the most popular business-oriented social media network whose interface is built with the help of Node.js. LinkedIn has more than 722 million active users in 200 countries all over the globe.
When Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for $26 billion, the synchronous Ruby on Rails mobile app was replaced with Node.js to enable smooth app operation, letting it execute multiple requests with a single process.
The benefits Node.js provided for LinkedIn:
- Faster mobile app (up to 20x)
- The capacity to support 10x less than the previous levels of resource utilization
- Doubled traffic capacity
- The number of machines needed for service hosting decreased by 10x
- Servers decreased from 30 to 3
eBay
eBay is an eCommerce global leader and one of the world’s greatest marketplaces for online sales. eBay has 182 million active users and connects merchants and buyers in 190 markets around the globe.
As a gigantic eCommerce platform faced with huge traffic and scalability hurdles, eBay required a reliable system that would be able to support all the active users and real-time changes.
The benefits Node.js provided for eBay:
- Enhanced app speed and simplicity
- Easy and coherent deployment
- Single threading
- Automation of the processes
NASA
There is no need to emphasize NASA’s impact on the space program or long-term civil and military research in the field of aviation. Innovations lead by NASA require incessant research and improvements, and since they work in what is a completely expanse, the data is the only certain guide along the path.
When in 2013 an Italian astronaut was in life-threatening danger on one of the spacewalks when water started to leak in his helmet, NASA started an investigation based on recorded data in order to spot the problem that caused the error, which turned out to be a task of astronomical proportions because it was spread out across too many different locations. This was a moment when NASA decided to incorporate NODE.js into their protocols, which enabled them to efficiently track the errors and make improvements in a much more efficient and less expensive way.
The benefits Node.js provided for NASA:
The very first NASA project utilizing Node.js was introduced is connection to EVA spacesuits, which helped them to improve security and data accessibility. After they developed a specific microservices architecture with separate APIs and applications within Node.js, the data related to EVA spacesuits was stored on a single database cloud, instead of the previous three separate legacy databases. This reduced the time to access the data, averagely by 300%.
Why choose Node.js?
We at web development company Chicago know that the benefits Node.js brings to operating processes and to users are limitless. The architecture of Node.js is capable of efficiently dealing with several simultaneous connections, cross-platform development is focused on all types of devices and OS platforms, including iOS, Android, desktop, and web. The code is reusable and fully compatible with all major operating systems including Linux, Windows, as well as macOS.
Learning Node.js is quite simple if you have a good JavaScript foundation, and it does not require knowledge of C#, Objective-C, and other native development languages.
The reusable RESTful APIs of Node.js and constant support are additional reasons to incorporate Node.js into your operating processes. Choosing Node.js is the only option when fulfilling high requirements and expectations from your users over real-time dynamic information channels.
