How to Use JavaScript outside of the Browser?

Ever since Node.js was created, the JavaScript based development environment has been becoming more and more popular. Today, it is the number one choice of countless innovative businesses all over the world, surpassing the likes of PHP, or Ruby. Why? What makes it special? 

Let’s take a closer look at Node.js – the JavaScript based runtime environment that has gradually overtaken the world of web development.

JavaScript outside of the browser?

Back in the day, JavaScript was only used in the browser, as part of the frontend of websites and web apps. At that time, the language was sometimes thought of as a little more than a toy, used for making websites pretty. Over the time, JavaScript and the way it was used greatly improved. Sophisticated technologies meant for making it useful in advanced form validation and asynchronous app development were created. And then, Node.js came.

Node.js benefits

Node.js development uses JavaScript under the hood, but it makes it possible to use JavaScript to create the backend of an app. Why is it so popular today? Among the reasons: 

• It’s very fast

Its ability to handle tasks asynchronously greatly improves the speed of many apps, especially those that need real-time interactions, typical for many innovative apps. 

• Its performance is superb

Back in 2013, Wal Mart tested Node during the busiest time of the year, handling a traffic of over 200 million users without much difficulty for the CPUs. 

• Unifies languages across the board

With JavaScript on both frontend and backend, it’s much easier to exchange knowledge, reuse code, organize work and reskilling for various developers. 

• It can be hosted anywhere

As the lingua franca of the web, JavaScript is supported on just about any hosting you can imagine. Large cloud hosting providers such as Google, Amazon AWS, or Microsoft Azure support Node.js out of the box.

Predictions – Node and JavaScript’s future

Statistics say it all, in the upcoming years web development services with Node.js will be getting even more popular. For companies, it is time to improve their effort to search skilled Node developers. Developers themselves should consider picking up this ability and striving to follow all the latest trends in this fast changing field of web technology.