5 Benefits of Using Node JS for API Development

Are you willing to enhance your app’s functionality with APIs? One of the best technologies being used for API development is Node.js. developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009, this cross-platform development environment is known for its efficiency and rich ecosystem of libraries and frameworks.

Before we understand about the benefits of using Node.js technology for API development, let’s first understand how APIs are useful for any application.

Why Does Your App Need API Development?

Application Programming Interfaces are essential for all modern apps for enhancing functionality and scalability. Following are some of the key roles played by APIs:

• For web applications: Fetching data, authenticating users, and executing logic
• For mobile applications: Enabling real-time updates, notifications, and cloud storage
• For ecommerce marketplaces: Connecting product listings, integrating payment gateways, and order processing
• For social media platforms: Letting users to like, comment, and share content
• For on-demand service apps: Connecting users to service providers, enabling real-time tracking, and automated payments
• For financial and banking apps: Securing transactions, fraud detection, and account management
• For healthcare apps: Connecting patients to doctors, facilitating online consultations, and accessing medical records
• For IoT and smart devices: Enabling communication between smart devices and cloud servers, remote control and monitoring, and automation

Why Developers Prefer Using Node.js for API Development?

Many popular apps are made on Node.js. These include Netflix, Uber, PayPal, Twitter, GoDaddy, Slack, GitHub, and Mozilla. And here’s why all these apps and their APIs are made on Node.js:

High Performance & Scalability 

Google Chrome’s V8 Engine is known for its high-speed performance. By converting JavaScript into machine code, it is able to process API requests much faster. 

Node.js works on a single-threaded event loop. It mean that it can handle multiple requests simultaneously, without blocking any input or output requests. Thus, the apps made on Node.js are also highly scalable, being ideal for a growing business.

Asynchronous & Non-Blocking I/O 

Unlike other frameworks, Node.js processes all user requests under one thread simultaneously. Due to this ability, any other input or output requests will not get blocked when multiple events are taking place simultaneously. Thus, when developing APIs on this model, all API requests will be handled more efficiently, ensuring none of them are blocked or prevented. It is the most ideal situation for developing a real-time app on Node.js.

Single Programming Language (JavaScript) 

Most frameworks we use accept multiple programming languages, which one can argue is more flexible for a developer. However, when a framework accepts only one programming language for both frontend and backend development, it proves to be efficient in many ways. 

Since both frontend and backend development require only JavaScript, full-stack development becomes simpler in the following ways:

• Reduced learning curve 
• Reusing of code
• Sharing of data models to eliminate redundancy

Rich Ecosystem & NPM Packages 

One of the features that Node.js is known for is having a vast ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. The Node Package Manager provides you with thousands of libraries and frameworks that are open-source. Following are some of the popular ones used for API development:

• Web Frameworks: Express.js, Fastify, and NestJS
• Database Libraries: Mongoose, Sequelize, and Prisma
• For Authentication and Security: jsonwebtoken, bcrypt, and helmet
• For API Documentation & Validation: Swagger and Joi
• For Middleware and Utilities: cors, dotenv, and morgan
• For Real-Time API Development: Socket.io and GraphQL
• Testing Frameworks: Jest and Supertest

Microservices & Real-Time Capabilities 

The event-driven architecture and collection of certain libraries and frameworks allows developing microservices, which are essential for developing APIs. All microservices built on Node.js can be lightweight, have fast execution, are highly scalable, and easy to deploy. 

Due to this, microservice and API development on Node.js is best for real-time apps like chat apps, live streaming, and IoT solutions. 

Which Kind of App Do You Need API Development for?

API development is essential for every kind of app today, be it a native mobile app or a progressive web app. Node.js is especially helpful if you are developing an app that requires to function on real-time. Smart devices, chatting apps, social media platforms, weather apps and ecommerce fall under the category of providing real-time updates as per user inputs. Which app are you looking to enhance with Node.js?