How to Choose the Best Technology for App Development: Node.JS and Java?

Question of the Year: Node.js vs Java? Node.js or Java are two innovative solutions aimed at unifying traditional web development. One often encounters questions such as: “Which technology to choose for application development today?”.

Node.js is undoubtedly one of the most popular frameworks, since the fastest, cross-platform and scalable projects are created on it. This technology continues to present worthy competition in 2022, encouraging startups around the world to prefer it over many other technologies. 

Java – “write once, run anywhere” – this slogan speaks for itself. We should not forget the importance of this language. One of the main reasons for the popularity of this language among developers and programmers is its platform independence, which is very attractive. 

The differences between them will be discussed in this article from the experience of our Nodejs development company. But before we get to the differences, let’s take a closer look at the features of JavaScript and Node.js.

*PS. you can contact Omisoft to develop your new product and together we will find the best options.

The significance of Node.js

Node.js was founded by Ryan Dahl in 2009 using C, C+*, and JavaScript. It is important to realize that this broad free tool is based on Chrome V8. And it sparked the appearance of many Node js development companies.

The primary task of this backend platform is to execute JavaScript out of the browser. Node.js implies bi-directional communication between users’ browsers and servers. Hence, high bandwidth and low latency attain.

The meaning of Java

Initially, Java is an object-oriented programming language created in 1991 by Patrick Naughton and James Gosling. However, at the time, this programming language was known as oak, followed by green.

Flexibility and adaptability are at the heart of this language, allowing it to adapt to any operating system or machine. When the first version of Java was published, it was intended for the development of interactive TV and has rapidly become one of the most sought-after programming languages in the world. 

Node.js benefits

What are the advantages of node js? Node.js is great for creating fast and scalable applications. It’s gained popularity among developers across the globe for the right reason. Over the years, many well-known brands like PayPal and Yahoo have advanced Node.js due to its many benefits. Let’s take a look at the reasons that have attracted the attention of society to Node.js:

• Use of the same language on the client and server-side;
• Speed of development;
• Creating lightweight applications due to the lightness of the system;
• Ability to use JavaScript syntax;
• Node Package Manager;
• Regularity of technology development.

If you want to learn more about this topic, please read our article by clicking here.

Java benefits

Everybody knows that Java is a high-level programming language that is excellent at solving common problems of all sorts. Not including the advent of all technologies, Java still has several advantages to keeping ahead of the competition in development:

• Object-oriented programming (the ability to reuse objects in other programs);
• Simple syntax and smooth learning curves;
• Multiple libraries;
• Adaptability to any computer;
• Security manager (you can adjust access rules);
• You can create a Java application on Windows, compile it into bytecode, and run it on any other platform that supports the Java Virtual Machine (JVM);
• Garbage collector (automatic storage management);
• Multithreading. 

Node.js vs Java: an exhaustive comparison

Productivity

Java uses compilers and therefore runs slower than native languages. The garbage pick-up function, although very useful in some cases, requires a lot of memory space. However, applications written to Node.js never act as a buffer, producing data in pieces and speeding up execution time.  Even if Just-In-Time compilers can improve Java’s performance a bit, there is a clear winner in the Node.js vs Java speeds contest.

Stability

When it comes to stability, the picture between Node.js and Java is the exact opposite. Node.js is constructed around interacting with APIs.  APIs tend to change frequently and often cause difficulties with the stability of applications created with this technology. Java is known for its very stable interfaces because of its robust and proven structure. Of course, it also wins this battle.

Scalability

Node.js’ inherent event mechanism allows servers to respond in a non-lockable manner, making it highly scalable. Node scalability is one of its major characteristics and advantages.

In addition, Java has no internal scalability, although its lack can be improved by integrating third-party applications such as NCache (for distributed cache).

Encoding speed

Both Java and Node.js have many community-developed libraries and reusable components, making it easy for specialists from Node js development companies to write code. However, Node.js has a slight advantage in this comparison. Jeff Harrell, former director of engineering and chief architect at PayPal, has documented that an application on Node.js requires 33% fewer lines of code and 40% fewer files. With all this in mind, developing an application on Node.js takes less time on average. It is important to note, though, that this time can vary depending on the type of your project, the size of your team, and their language.

Cost of development

Java developers are generally more expensive than Node.js developers, and they are harder to find, as there are more JavaScript developers in the market than Java developers.

Key features

Node.js is based on JavaScript, which means that developers can use the same syntax for both the client and server side, which is a huge advantage for faster and more flexible workflow. In addition, this environment has a looping event-handling mechanism that helps servers respond to requests without blocking and provides greater scalability. Nodejs development companies also note its lightness.

Java is a statically typed and safe language compared to its competitor Node.js. Multithreading (or parallelism) and platform independence are powerful trump cards up its sleeve. Multithreading allows multiple processes to run simultaneously and optimally distributes CPU usage. Java is compiled to bytecode, which facilitates portability and platform independence, i.e. the code can be executed on any computer or OS without changing the syntax. Other important features of Java are robust memory management and its parallel accumulators.

Both Java and Node support numerous libraries that make life much easier for Nodejs development companies.

Which is better: Java vs Node.js?

 Let’s analyze the difference between Nodejs and Javascript!

The outstanding Microsoft development team had an opinion: Learning the basics of JavaScript (JS) is not the hard part if you are familiar with Java or any other programming language.

In conclusion…

As a result of our research and comparison of two programming languages – Node.js and Java, it can be noted that each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. Java is an older, more universal language, but at the same time, it is more complex than Node.js. 

Both technologies have large communities, unique libraries, and materials that help beginners and professionals. Their popularity is difficult to estimate, as they often belong to different categories (Node as an environment and Java as a programming language) and both are endowed with significant attention. It seems that Node.js is a bit more popular and loved by developers. Regarding the performance of Node.js in comparison with Java, we can say that the not-very-high performance of single-threaded Node.js is compensated by speed and lightness. 

Is it difficult to choose the right development technology? Where to start? What to do if your project combines all these areas? Our OmiSoft’s software engineer in Germany offers high-quality backend and frontend development services using Node.js. We will be happy to provide you with technical advice and cover all your needs with the help of experts who are proficient in both technologies, as well as 100% experienced in your unique niche.

By Yevhen Sakara

CBDO & Co-founder

Oct 11, 2022

Share this article

• 
• 
•