NodeJS Vs Go: This will help you to choose the right programming language

Today, web developers have a wide range of options available when it comes to choosing a programming language for web development. These programming languages are not just viable for frontend development, but the backend development programming languages is important as well. Now, in most of the web applications, there is usually more non-UI code than the code which is directly related to end-user interaction. For instance, data needs to be stored and retrieved, logic has to be in place, and output to be calculated.

This is what the backend development is all about. Simply put, it is about writing code to create APIs, libraries, and working with components that don’t have user interfaces. You might already be aware that Node JS. But, Node JS is not the only backend development programming language in the market. Google’s Go language also seems to be dominating the backend programming language market.

In this article, we’re going to compare two relatively new backend programming languages — Node JS programming language and Go programming language. But before we start our comparison, let’s get the basics of both the programming languages right first.

What is Node.js

• Node.js environment is an open-source server environment
• Node.js is free
• Node.js environment runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.)
• Node.js environment uses JavaScript on the server.
• A common task for a web server can be to open a file on the webserver and return the data to the client-server.

Node.js environment eliminates the waiting and simply continues with the next request. Node.js environment runs single-threaded, non-blocking, asynchronous programming, which is very memory efficient.

What Can Node.js Do

• Node.js environment can generate the dynamic page content
• Node.js environment can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server
• Node.js environment can collect form data
• Node.js can environment add, delete, modify data in your database

What is Go

Go (also called GoLang) is an open-source, general-purpose programming language developed by Google.Inc’s Computer engineers to create dependable and efficient software. Most similarly modeled after the C programming language, Go is statically typed and explicit.

What go can do

• You can make websites (both static and dynamic content)
• You can make virtual environment layering applications such as docker web application.
• You can write applications that can be distributed and can do a hell lot of processing.
• You can write an application for scraping data from websites.
• To some extent, you can write an object-oriented manner code in GO.

Node.js vs Golang Battle

Before we start comparing these two back-end development technologies, let’s make the terminology clear. Though Google’s Go is a programming language, and Node.js is a runtime/environment for JS code execution, both are used for the backend development of websites and web servers. While Go programming language is suitable for writing the code executable server-side, Node.js creates an environment for JavaScript to be executed on the server-side.

Difference between Node.js VS Go

Maturity

Golang programming language is at a decent level, quite mature and robust for its age. Whereas in Node.js, the APIs are under constant changes, their maturity is highly tentative.

Performance

One of the goals Go’s developers succeeded in was to achieve better performance. On the whole, the Go programming language is very light-weighted and faster when compared to Node.js. Its performance characteristics are very similar to those of C/C++ programming language, which are very good.

Error Handling

Web development with Go programming language has quite a difficult approach, as it demands explicit error checking with the program flowing frequently.

Error handling in Node.js can be inconsistent at times. Nevertheless, it offers a more clear and common throw-catch handling technique. And the main benefit is that a lot of developers are already familiar with it.

The Concurrency

The major difference between the Node.js and the Go programming language is that while the former utilizes the event called mechanism, the latter is making use of the coroutines known as Goroutines. The mechanism is based on the single-thread and this where the Node.js environment lacks behind the Go programming language.

On the contrary, the Go programming language makes use of a lightweight thread that is managed by the Go language runtime. The interactions between the Goroutines Become much easier due to the channels.

Scalable

Like Concurrency, the Go language can win over Node.js in scalability. As such the Node.js is not regarded as suitable for the large projects due to weaker parallel processes.

However, again the Goroutines prove to be a major asset for the Golang programming language as it provides multiple threads to be performed in one go along with the parallel tasks.

Front-end & Backend

The Go programming language code can be run using the goper.js in the browser. But the fact is that most of the developers give priority to the JavaScript front-end programming languages for client-side development.

Go programming language is preferred more as the backend language and it offers high performance for developing the current applications. As far as Node.js is concerned, you won’t find any problems whatsoever in switching to client-side development.

Community

As mentioned in the beginning, both Golang programming language and Node JS are open-source and they have their communities fully engaged in improving these programming languages.

When it comes to the Node JS runtime environment, its community is large and vibrant. The entire Node JS foundation is aiming to enable widespread Node JS adoption.

Intel, IBM, Paypal, Microsoft, and Godaddy are active members of the Node JS foundation.

The Golang community, on the other hand, is young and smaller. But it is increasingly growing every year.

Google hosts GopherCon event annually to gather Go programming language developers from all around the world to discuss and explore new opportunities and changes.

Packages & Tooling

The number of Node runtime environment packages sits at more than 100,000 currently. This means that a lot of groundwork has been done, and that can make certain software projects a lot easier and/or cheaper to implement. Node’s tooling is also superb. The node environment package manager learned from all the package managers that came before and did most things right.

The number of standard Go programming language packages is growing steadily, currently at over 100, and the Go programming language community packages can be searched easily.you can take a look at the “go get”-able packages from the Go programming language community, which currently sits at over 58,000 available for use and growing.

Developer Mindshare

A recent study showed the rise of Go to a place in the top 20. The pace at which this happened exceeded expectations. Go has a lot of momentum building up, especially with the recent support of the Android mobile OS.

The node runtime environment is much more popular at this time by many orders of magnitude. Getting good hosting support, commercial support, and Node.js environment freelancers for your project will be much easier for NodeJS at this point.

Ease of Implementing the Blockchain

The Blockchain is the buzzword these days with the technology scaling to new heights. Many companies are interested in integrating modern technology as it is proximately related to cryptocurrency development.

However, when we talk of implementing the blockchain using Go programming language, it is much more simplified than incorporating the technology with Node.js. So, Golang is highly recommended.

The Final Words

We have seen a tough competition battle between the two popular backend development: Node.js environment and Golang programming language. Both have their pros and cons and certainly, it is a daunting task to choose one. But you can select it according to your specific requirements and go ahead with the project.

Based on maturity and performance, Golang is proving superior while Node.js is ousting it on ease of learning, development tools, and front-end development.