One significant reason for the success of JavaScript in recent times has been its versatility. It is possible to use JavaScript for front-end client-side development and backend server-side development mainly because of Node.js. It will be possible to choose from several server-side JavaScript frameworks, and the most well-known choice happens to be Express.js.
However, before making a choice, it is essential to consider several fundamental aspects such as scalability, performance, and the flexibility of your web application.
In the following paragraphs, we have mentioned the 4 JavaScript frameworks and their pros and cons.
1. Express.js
Express.js is an open-source web framework intended for Node.js and is utilized for creating web applications and APIs. This framework was created originally by TJ Holowaychuk in the year 2010 before IBM acquired it in 2015. At present, Node.js Foundation is responsible for maintaining it. The primary benefit of making use of Express.js is first server-side coding. Complicated tasks that might’ve taken several hours for coding using Node.js can be accomplished within only a few minutes, mainly because of Express. Besides this, a powerful routing mechanism is provided by Express for taking care of extremely dynamic URLs, unlike the basic one provided by Node.js.
Pros
• Community support — Express happens to be a mature framework with huge community banking.
• Impressive documentation — Express comes with comprehensive documentation together with lots of resources and tutorials.

 

• Fast-paced development — Accelerates and streamlines web application development using Node.js.
• Routing — A robust routing mechanism is provided for defining routes depending on HTTP methods and URLs.
• Simple to learn — Because of the simple structure and syntax, it is quite easy for beginner developers to learn Express. You only need to know Node fundamentals and vanilla JavaScript for doing this.
Cons
• It is the developer’s responsibility to ensure the web app’s security. Express offers no security solution.
• It might be somewhat difficult for the beginners to learn Express due to its un-opinionated characteristics.
2. Next.js
Based on React, Next.js happens to be an end-to-end server-side framework. It was the Dutch company Vercel which created it in the year 2017. Even though Gatsby and Next are both based on React, these two are not the same. While Next happens to be an SSR- Server-side renderer, Gatsby is a static site generator. However, it is important to bear in mind that Next also offers static generators. The most significant benefits of using Next happen to be hot code reloading, automated code-splitting, automated routing, and inbuilt SEO handling.
Pros
• Server-Side Rendering — Next comes with SSR for providing much quicker performance since there is no need for it to wait for the browser of the client to show content by loading JavaScript. SSR starts rendering HTML even before downloading and executing JavaScript code in the client’s browser. Consequently, it is possible to obtain an initial render of the app while the code is being loaded in the background.
• SEO friendly — Conventional client-side rendered applications do not have a proper SEO performance. It is difficult for the search engine crawlers to index such pages. Nevertheless, fantastic SEO performance is delivered by Next with its capability of server-side rendering. It is possible to create vibrant meta tags for optimizing SEO.

 

• Hot-code Reloading — The page is automatically reloaded by Next once there is any modification.
Cons
• Gatsby is considered to be better than Next for smaller blogs where better performance is delivered by static build compared to depending on the server-side rendering of Next.
• Performance benchmarks of Nuxt and Gatsby are better than that of Next.
3. Gatsby.js
Sam Bhagwat and Kyle Mathews founded Gatsby.js in the year 2015. Gatsby happens to be a contemporary and flexible static site generator based on GraphQl and React and is employed to create SEO-friendly and high-performance websites. The users are allowed by this framework to pull information from any available data source. However, server-side rendering is not performed by Gatsby. Instead, HTML content is generated by it during build time on the client-side. Consequently, fast performance is delivered by Gatsby.js, along with fantastic SEO performance and flawless security. Gatsby provides one more notable benefit, which happens to be the plug-ins that help add modifications and key functionalities out there.

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Pros

• Quick performance — Sites created with Gatsby’s help are typically several times quicker than normal sites built using other tech stacks. Gatsby aids in optimizing the performance of your website by automatically compiling the most suitable web pack configuration.

• SEO Friendly — The search engine crawlers can read static content that has been generated by this framework, and no hindrance is offered, such as any other JavaScript framework.

 

• Supports more than one data source — Information is collected by Gatsby by markdown and other remote information sources such as WordPress, Netlify, Drupal, Contentful, Stripe, Trello, and so on.

• High security — This framework provides top-notch security since it doesn’t need any database or server.

Cons

• Not ideal for large scale sites — Gatsby cannot be considered appropriate for content-heavy sites such as e-commerce stores. There will be a significant increase in build time with the growth of the content size. This would result in a significant reduction in the performance of the website.

• Prerequisite understanding — Even though it is quite easy to learn and use Gatsby, a prerequisite understanding of GraphQl and React is imperative.

4. Nuxt.js

This one happens to be an open-source framework that is employed for creating performant web apps. One can consider it to be an enhancer for Vue. However, Nuxt.js will not be able to function on its own, and therefore, it will not be able to replace Vue. Moreover, one cannot consider it to be a comprehensive backend framework. Nuxt.js is a combination of official Vue components and libraries — Vue, Vuex, Vue Router, Vue server renderer, and Vue meta, and it packs the expertise of PostCSS plus webpack babel as well.

Pros

• Quick set up and development — It will take only a few minutes to set up a fresh project in Nuxt.js mainly because of the starter-template, which can be created by using the command line easily. The majority of the initial configuration and setup is taken care of by this framework, which will enable you to perform coding straightaway.

• Project structure — By default, your code is organized by Nuxt in a scalable, logical, as well as simple-to-understand structure.

• Code Splitting — A static version of your application is generated by this framework using the most performing web pack configuration. Consequently, every single page which has been generated statically comes with its personal JS file. In this way, JavaScript code can be split into smaller files, thus improving speed and performance.

• Nuxt Community — Nuxt Community happens to be a collection of several APIs, starter kits, modules, and libraries that would be required by you while starting.

Cons

• Integrating custom libraries with this framework can be somewhat difficult.

• While using Nuxt, you might face debugging issues, which can be quite frustrating as well as challenging.

Conclusion

And there we have it. 4 JavaScript frameworks you should consider trying out for your next web app. Have you tried any of these before? What were your thoughts? Leave a comment to continue the conversation.