Use NodeJS With React For Web Development- Why?

In the era of technology, businesses are always looking for different innovative ways to engage their audience on the devices they utilize to stay ahead of the competition. Many of them started the use of Javascript environment like NodeJS with React to build robust web apps. If you are also thinking of using NodeJS and ReactJS together, your mind might be full of questions like- Can we use Nodejs with React?, Do we need Nodejs in the backend with React? How does Node and React fit well for web app development? To help you in the better decision making, here we have explained all the above questions, and some other important questions that you might consider while developing your web app using NodeJS with React. But before digging to these questions, let us see overview of Nodejs and React.

What Is NodeJS?

It is a javascript runtime environment that is built on the Chrome V8’s Engine and consists of all the things required to run a program in Javascript. Node.js launched a callback concept to achieve the event-driven single-threaded server programming and further builds JS on the server-side. Also it improves the web app development process.

Know the reasons to use Node.js for server side programming at- Top 5 Reasons To Choose Node.js For Server-Side Programming

Pros Of NodeJS-

• Javascript is popular and NodeJS is originated from it. So most of the developers with a command on front end can easily learn back-end with Node.js and start implementing in their projects.
• To scale horizontally, you need to include new nodes into current system and to scale vertically, you can integrate various resources into single nodes.
• It is considered a full-stack Javascript framework; so can be used for client-side and server-side apps.
• Allows developers to implement code efficiently. Also, code execution happens rapidly because of the runtime environment supported by non-blocking I/O operations.

Cons Of NodeJS-

• It doesn’t possess a well-sufficient library system as compared to other programming languages. So, developes have to use various common libraries for things like ORM, processing images and so on.
• NodeJS developers may face issues with its highly-unstable API. From time-to time, a new API appears consisting of backward-incompatible changes. So, developers are urged to update it.
• Code in asynchronous programming is needed for scalability, lots of  developers find it challenging to work as compared to linear blocking I/O programming.

What Is ReactJS?

It is one of the leading Javascript libraries, that is released and maintained by Facebook, lots of developers and companies. It works according to the MVC architecture and updates all the things in the View part of architecture. Also, it is widely used for building attractive user interfaces. 

The latest version of React is React 18. If you don’t know the features of React 18, have a look at- What’s New In React 18?

Pros Of ReactJS-

• It offers in-depth documentation wirth a wide range of tutorials and resources for developers.
• ReactJS has improved the dynamic web app development process. 
• Now, it has streamlined the entire method. Using the browser extension, you can integrate HTML quotes, syntax into code. 
• It allows developers to use various components for web app development. Those components include specific logic and functionality. 
• ReactJS improves the performance because of Virtual DOM. DOM is a cross-platform programming API that looks after HTML, XML or XHTML. 
• As compared to other JS frameworks, ReactJS is SEO-friendly. Various search engines are not able to read JS’-heavy apps properly.

Cons Of ReactJS-

• ReactJS has poor documentation. It continuously modifies so it becomes hard to make in-depth documentation.
• Main drawback is that quickly updating environment makes it challenging for developers to learn and implement new things in web apps.
• ReactJS consists of a JSX, an extension that uses HTML with Javascript. It possesses its own pros, but various developers think of it as an obstacle in the learning curve.

NodeJS- Frontend Or Backend Library?

Many developers use Nodejs for enterprise development as a trending solution related to microservices, WebSockets and event queries. It is a preferred choice for back-end because of some essential reasons such as asynchronous model, non-blocking I/O, and event-driven architecture. It’s javascript runtime environment gives more freedom to run documents that are not executed in the web browser, so mostly it is used as back-end environment. 

Node.js consists a feature that allows automatizing routine tasks, including code testing, tool kit etc., which is available under the front-end environment. In short, Node.js can be used for both front-end and back development. Because of the scalability and huge community, developers prefer it for front-end development.

React- Front-End Or Back-End Library-

React is a front-end library, developed and maintained by Facebook since 2015. It works well with any old web server like Apache, NGINX or using backend like Ruby or Rails, PHP etc. ReactDOM library works efficiently with web browser’s DOM.

By using react, it is possible to develop a web app that solves the issues of  user interactions and performance due to its DOM manipulations. 

Can We Use NodeJS With ReactJS?

Obviously, Node.js is a convenient platform to host and run a web server for React apps because of-

-Using an NPM (Node Package Manager), Node works with NPM registry to easily install any package through NPM CLI.

-Node bundles a React app into a single file for easy compilation using webpack and other Node modules.

Also, using Nodejs to host and run web server helps in various ways-

-It uses a speed optimized V8 engine to address bulk requests which are handled through callback functions to ensure quantity and quality. 

-Developers can execute Reactjs code directly in the Node.js environment.

-Components of React DOM are designed to work with Nodejs that reduce lines of code 

Sometimes, changing the backend is not a feasible option. Node.js offers highly reliable and efficient tools that can be used without need for Node Web Server.

Do We Need NodeJS In The Backend To Run React?

Most of you might think that, we need a Nodejs backend to run Reactjs. But this is not true. There is no need for Nodejs each time you use React.

Reactjs is a library, used to render the user-interfaces of your web and mobile apps. Whereas, Nodejs is a runtime environment to handle data communication on server-side. It is used to provide real-time data management in app networking. It is better to analyze use cases of Nodejs and React before development starts.

Reactjs can only be used to build UI components on the frontend, Nodejs will handle the data stored on the backend. Tools like React-router and redux provides direct communication to be handled at the server-side by Nodejs. Whenever a user interacts with user-interface (Reactjs) and a server request is made, browser send data according to the specified URL path from the backend (Nodejs).

Here’s the significance of Reactjs, as a frontend framework, loads the components attached to the routes(Navigation and read routing). As a backend, Node.js does not care about which component loads on a particular URL request.

Reasons To Use NodeJS And Reactjs To Make Code Highly Efficient And Scalable-

1. Real-time data- If app’s core is based on Real-time data-intensive management or data streaming, Node.js is better to use for continued server connection.

2. High Server Load- Use of Nodejs with React is good when your web app needs handling of n number of requests and maintaining server laid balance.

3. Single Page Apps(SPA)- Single page app development in React using node to build lightweight backend model for asynchronous data loading through callback functions.

4. MERN Stack- Nodejs can be used with react with MERN stack

Why Combination Of NodeJS & React Is Best?

Most of the developers like the use of ReactJS and NodeJS combination to build reusable user interface modules. React is a javascript library used to serve the view component of MVC architecture. It is a Javascript virtual DOM and despite the fact that ReactJS is specially for browser, lots of ReactJS development firms use it to deliver a server accessing the combination of Node.js.

In such a case, data and modules are perfect for handling vast apps and improving readability across multiple devices.

Final Words-

React and Node have different functions- React for front-end and Node for backend. Node.js can do all kinds of scripting and CLI tools. Using React with Node can help you to scale your project at a next level. So, some popular companies like PayPal, netflix uses Nodejs.

If you are also thinking to use Nodejs with React, consult with Solace experts. We are here to help you through consultation and development. You can hire nodejs developers and react developers of a solace team for an effective development. Connect with Solace and get a free quote for web app development. We will be happy to help you.