Go vs. Node.js: Who Trumps the Battle of Backend Frameworks?
The backend of your application is truly the essential part of your product. No matter how much you appreciate the design, the application’s success lies in its backend. A scalable backend that effectively implements the required business logic is the primary goal of programmers.
Therefore, it is crucial to choose the most powerful and scalable technology. There are plenty of languages in the market that can form the backend of any application, Node.js and Golang are the two most popular technologies among them.
They are real and developed languages that have recently been used in various outstanding projects. Golang is an open-source programming language, whereas Node.js is an open-source server framework. They both are gaining popularity for various reasons.
According to an app development stat, it is observed that almost 50% out of 58,543 respondents use Node.js as their preferred app development tool.
Golang, on the other hand, has overtaken other programming languages in the application development market and has gained huge recognition over the past few years.
But, which backend framework is best for you? In this article, I’ll make a healthy comparison of two of Google’s most popular backend development tools based on several essential features and various other factors.
Here we go…
Golang — A Brief Introduction
Golang, also known as Go, is an open-source, cross-platform, compiled multithreaded programming language introduced by Google in 2009.
It incorporates the best features of other programming languages. For example, it is similar to C, C++ in terms of performance and security, and it combines the speed of Python. Therefore, Golang can be used for concurrent programming providing dynamic interfaces and memory safety.
Moreover, Golang works with the most popular operating systems such as Microsoft, Linux, macOS, etc. Also, it is the best technology for cloud interfaces, networking applications, and microservices.
Key features of Golang:
- Standard library: The performance of Golang can be proven via sound library and built-in functions of primitive types.
- Speed: Golang is fast because of its compiled machine code.
- Garbage collection: Memory management in Go looks simple. Garbage collected objects are dynamically allocated when using arithmetic pointers.
- Analysis tools
Top Use cases of Golang:
Golang is the brightest for developing the following application types:
- Cloud-Native Applications
- Scalable Database Implementations
- Web Development
- Utilities And Stand-alone Tools
- Fast and Elegant CLIs
- Support DevOps and SRE
- Distributed Networked Services
What is Node.js?
Node.js is an open-source runtime environment based on Google Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. It has become the most popular environment for building cross-platform apps. Furthermore, it operates on a single-threaded event-based loop to make all executions non-blocking.
Since Node.js is written in JavaScript, it is easier for programmers to script both client-side and server-side using the same language. Node.js is supported by Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix and has lots of open-source JavaScript libraries that simplify the web application development process.
Where is Node.js commonly used?
Node.js is widely used for projects that actively use JavaScript on the front and backend of the project. Here are some areas where Node.js is used:
- Micro-services
- Static file server
- Complex SPA’s (Single page apps)
- Scripting & Automation
- Web Application framework
- Command-line apps
- Real-time Chat apps
- Embedded systems
- Browser games Hardware programming
- Data Streaming apps
You can also hire Node.js developers to develop all such kinds of applications at reasonable rates.
Go vs. Node.js: The battle of the best begins
Now that you know the basics about Golang and Node.js, let’s compare them in terms of various factors such as performance, scalability, error handling, and other criteria.
#1 Performance Factors
Performance significantly affects the load and response time of the app. Hence, it directly impacts customer satisfaction with your application.
The core objective of launching Golang was to achieve better performance. In comparison to Node.js, Golang is a better choice for raw performance and computation. In general, Go is a fast, lightweight platform because it is based on the features of C and C++.
Whereas powerfully composed Node.js is a derivative of JavaScript, it is generally slower than other programming languages. Unlike Golang, Node.js cannot provide the raw performance of CPU or memory-bound tasks.
In a nutshell, Node.js can perform equally high or terrible depending on the nature of your app. In this comparison, Golang surpasses Node.js and helps programmers to achieve optimum performance.
Node vs Golang Winner: Golang
#2 Scalability and Concurrency
Node.js uses a single-threaded mechanism where instructions are executed in a particular order. And this where Node.js lacks behind the Go language.
While this sounds like a good practice, it creates more challenges for developers when massively large apps are considered and require executing different processes in parallel.
In contrast, the Golang uses a lightweight thread that is managed by the Go runtime. Furthermore, Golang uses go-routines, which can run multiple programs at once. In addition, channels are responsible for smooth and easy interaction between go-routines.
The language offers better concurrency options than JavaScript and enables developers to work with multiple threads at the same time without using much RAM. It means that Golang provides better results when comparing concurrency in Nodejs.
Like Concurrency, Golang is also winning over Node.js in scalability. As such, Node.js is not considered suitable for large projects due to the inefficient parallelization process.
However, goroutines prove to be a significant asset for Golang as it offers multiple threads to perform at once with the parallel tasks.
Goland vs Nodejs Winner: Golang
#3 Availability of Tools
Ready-made solutions facilitate development and eliminate costs for application development. Unfortunately, Golang is comparatively a new language and hasn’t become much popular.
It has decent libraries and packages, but fewer tools are available than Node.js. Also, Golang lacks front-end support, whereas Node.js helps you build an attractive front-end.
Whereas Node.js has a wide range of tools, frameworks, and libraries available for programmers to develop all types of applications.
Another reason to choose Node.js is the wide variety of development tools and frameworks. In addition, it is an event-based framework with microservices architecture.
A microservices architecture means that an application is divided into smaller modules with well-defined operational interfaces so that you can add new components to your application with ease.
Node.js consists of about 800,000 ready-mades ‘building blocks that can be installed and operated easily. Even though the Node.js tools far exceeds the Golang tools, Golang has robust tools like Gofmit, Godoc, GoMetaLiner, and Go Run.
Go vs Node Winner: Node.js
#4 Error Handling
Error handling in Golang demands you to implement explicit error checking. It handles the compile-time and run-time errors differently, which creates problems for programmers.
However, the makers of Golang have started working on other error handling functions that can help reduce development time.
Whereas, Node.js implements the traditional throw-catch error handling mechanism, which is quite popular among developers. With this conventional approach, errors are displayed and corrected before any further operations are performed.
When comparing the error handling mechanism, many developers find Node.js better because they are pretty familiar with the throw-catch approach.
Node Vs Go Winner: It’s a tie
#5 Community Support
JavaScript is an open-source programming language that has a vast community around the world. Being open-source, a large group of developers brainstorm and develop practical solutions to the problem arising globally.
Node.js has large organizations as active members, including Joyent, Microsoft, Paypal, Groupon, npm, SAP, and the list goes on.
According to a recent study, about 67.8% of the developer community prefers Node.js over Golang. Plus, if you look at the Golang community, it’s crowded with enthusiasts and experts. It has a bright future, which is continually growing and ever-evolving.
Node js vs Golang Winner: Node.js
What do major tech giants say about Golang and Node.js?
Now, let’s see what popular companies say about using Golang and Node.js.
Golang
In 2016, Uber migrated from Node.js to Go to improve the performance of their geofence lookup microservice. There were many reasons why Uber decided to migrate to Go.
One primary reason was the dynamically typed and interpreted nature of Node.js hinders its ability to handle CPU-intensive point-in-polygon algorithms efficiently. You can also hire Golang developers to achieve optimum performance.
Node.js
The entire user interface of the Netflix app is built with Node.js. The Netflix development team chose Node.js because they wanted a fast and lightweight application. By moving to Node.js, they achieved a 70% reduction in app startup time.
Golang vs Node: Who wins this battle?
Golang and Node.js are not entirely perfect, and both have strong and weak points. That’s why they are used for a wide variety of projects. However, Node.js, unlike other backend technologies, presents an open-source environment with robust tools for successful development.
Whereas in comparison, Golang is gaining popularity and provides high real-life performance, and allows to build meaningful projects. Although both the solutions have different characteristics, they are similar in some ways.
Therefore, analyze them in-depth and decide which language to use based on the goals of your project.
If you want to know more details about the backend framework, reach out to the top website development companies in India to get the most relevant information. They will surely help your business to benefit from these technologies.
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