In this blog, we’ll make a comparative analysis of Golang vs. Node.js for backend web development.
Now, we want to understand whether the switch from a traditional Node.js to the popular Golang is sensible or not. That’s why we would like to compare the two solutions to help you make the best choice.
GoLang’s Maturity
Even though Golang was only launched in 2009, it can still be regarded as quite mature and robust.
However, there can be no comparison when Node.js comes into play. It has a broader audience which supports the platform, even though the API is changing somewhat.
Node.js Performance
Being an interpreted language, which is based on JavaScript, Node.js turns out to be a bit slower than other compiled languages. Node.js is not able to provide the raw performance of CPU or memory-bound tasks that Go does. This is because it’s based on C and C++, which are initially good in terms of performance.
However, when it comes to real life, both show almost equal results.
Concurrency
Node.js is single-threaded and uses an event-callback mechanism. This is what makes Node.js much weaker than Go. It uses co-routines (called “goroutines”) and a lightweight thread, communication among which is elegant and seamless due to channels.
Scalability
Node.js is much weaker in terms of parallel processes for big projects compared to Golang, which was specifically designed to overcome possible issues in this area. Golang has the advantage due to goroutines that enable multiple threads to be performed concurrently, with parallel tasks executed simply and safely.
Front-End and Back-End
You should keep in mind that Golang is perfect for server-side applications, while Node.js is unrivaled when it comes to client-side development. Therefore, Go is an ideal decision if you want to create high-performing concurrent services on the back-end. And Node.js is your choice for the front-end.
Developers’ Tools
For a long time, Golang was regarded as having a very small community because it was young and not widely implemented. Now, the situation has changed. Despite the fact that Go still fails to keep pace with Node.js support, the language boasts numerous packages (more than 100), and the number keeps growing.With JavaScript, you’ll have no difficulty in finding the right tool or package for your project; today, there are more than 100,000. Hundreds of libraries, various tutorials, and multiple platforms are at your disposal.
Availability of Golang and Node.js Developers
According to the 2017 Developer Survey by StackOverflow, JavaScript continues to occupy the leading position, being chosen by 61.2% of developers. Go showed a slightly worse result 4.3%. However, this means Go is already among the most promising languages of 2018, based even on simple Google search.
Currently, it’s still much easier to find a competent team of Node.js developers than put together one of Golang specialists. However, you can always take the IT outsourcing route and reach out to a reputable team with a strong portfolio of Go work.
Error Handling
When you deal with errors while using Go, you have to implement explicit error checking. This can make the process of finding the causes of errors difficult. Yet numerous developers argue that such an approach provides a cleaner application in general.
The Node.js approach with a throw/catch mechanism is more traditional and is preferred by many developers, although there are some problems with consistency at the end.
Learning Curve
JavaScript is one of the most common coding languages nowadays. If you’re familiar with it, it will be no big deal to adapt to using Node.js programming. If you’re a newbie in JavaScript, you can leverage JavaScript’s vast community, which is always ready to share its expertise or give advice.
With Golang, you have to be ready to learn a new language, including co-routines, strict typing, pointers, and other programming concepts that may confuse you at first.
Ordeal by Blockchain
The latest trend of 2017 is blockchain technology. Many projects nowadays trumpet their blockchain-based application at every opportunity. And for good reason! The technology provides reliability, full control for the user, high-quality data, longevity, process integrity, transparency, and one more pack of buzzwords that define the viability of many startups today.
Theoretically, it’s possible to implement Node.js for developing a blockchain. However, building a blockchain in Go is a much easier solution and we highly recommend it.
In its essence, a blockchain is a distributed database of records. Go implies the implementation of an array and a map. The array keeps ordered hashes, and the map would keep hash -> blockpairs (maps are unordered). Then, we add blocks, and that’s it!
Summary
So, what should you choose: Node.js or Golang? The answer to this question depends on which type of development you need at the moment and how much you are going to scale the project.
For sure, Node.js has a broader community and a comprehensive documentation, yet, Go has a syntactically cleaner concurrency model, and it is better suited for scaling up.
Node.js, in its turn, can offer you a variety of packages, most of which are hard to re-implement in Go. In these case, it would be wiser to use Node.js.
If you feel overwhelmed by all this information or simply need some extra hands with Golang or Node.js expertise, then write a comment to initialise a conversation with other developers here.
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Content Source:
- medium.com
