Go Or Node.js - Which One Should You Choose?
The process of web application development is best compared with an iceberg; where there is a part of the app that is visible to the user and the remaining is unseen hidden inside referred as the back-end.
It has been observed in the majority of the web applications that there is greater use of non-UI code than the code which is directly linked to the interaction with the end user. There is information that has to be stored and retrieved, logic has to be followed, and results have to be calculated.
Every complex system contains various kinds of logic and data in the background. The back-end development is all about writing the codes which are not seen or known to the user of the app.
Among the various technologies used for the back-end programming, there are two which are most talked about nowadays, viz., Go & Node.js, relatively new though, but gaining popularity in their own ways and for different reasons.
Here we compare these latest technologies to know which one is best suited for web application development.
Describing Node.js - It is a free open-source server framework which can run easily on different platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix. It is built on the Google JavaScript server and uses JavaScript. By providing a rich library of different JS modules, Node.js simplifies web development to a great extent. The official documentation of the Node.js defines it as under -
“Node.js is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast and scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.”
Describing Golang - It is a free open-source general purpose programming language with its core structure built on the basic principles of “C” and “Python”. The structural typing, memory safety features, and garbage collection let Golang avoid various features of the modern languages. It is well defined in the Golang official documentation which states,
“Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It’s a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.” Differentiating Node.js and Golang
Before beginning the comparison, you must be clear about the basic terminology of the two. Google’s Go is a programming language, while Node.js is a runtime environment for executing JS code.
There are various elements on the basis of which the two components can be compared. In the following write-up, you may find at one point in time that Golang is a better option to go with and because of its popularity among various web developers in India and abroad, it is furthermore acceptable.
However, Node.js also does not appear to lose the battle as it also has various advantages of its own. So to sort out the concern and find the absolute solution for your project, let’s take a thorough look at various elements and compare Go & Node.js to find the better one.
The Golang is quite decent, mature and robust for its age and found to be quite appreciating whenever examined on the basis of maturity. On the other hand, Node.js has the APIs always under construction or change due to which it is not that mature. Hence, Go, in this context is a better option.
#2 Simplicity & Learning Graph
As JavaScript is one of the widely-used programming languages, it becomes cushy for the web development companies and its web developers to learn the Node.js faster. There are thousands of educational or training resources which have the JS as their primary subject making Node.js’s learning curve quite simpler for the web developers. On the flip side, in the case of Golang, the web development companies have to make various efforts to learn this new language making its curve quite complex.
In Go, one has to begin from the starting point to learn a completely new language and the processes, while in Node.js development it would be quite feasible for the developers to adapt them.
The Golang is very fast and light-weighted as compared to Node.js and its performance characteristics are somewhat similar to C and/or C which are quite good. On the flip side, Node.js is based on the interpreted language which is slower than the compiler languages. It takes time to reach the raw performance of CPU or memory bound tasks contrary to Go. The performance of Node.js is either high or horrible depending on the web application it is being used for, challenges and other essential concerns that can’t be overlooked.
#4 Concurrency & Scalability
The Golang was designed with the main objective of providing scalability and concurrency, and due to its goroutines (coroutines) element, it is absolutely suitable for scalability. It allows reliable execution of multiple threads simultaneously making the system work smoothly. The web development in Node.js is a bit different. Due to the event callbacks in the traditional concurrent programming, it is not very effective in terms of concurrency. It gets messy quite quickly which is the biggest drawback of Node.js. Hence, in this context, Golang sits in a better position.
Every web application development has different requirements and suitability. It is the sole responsibility of the web developer to understand which among Go and Node.js is better for the proposed project.
By comparing both of them on the basis of project requirements, it can be easily evaluated as to which alternative must be chosen to execute the plan and build a strong web application for the clients. The above write-up provides some common distinguishing elements of the two on the basis of which you can understand which one is better for your project. So analyse them well and take a wise call depending on your project requirements.
