You will need to choose the right backend framework for your web application if you want it to succeed. You may find several backend framework choices available when working on your dream project.
In the end, however, if you compare the pros and cons of the most popular options, Laravel and NodeJS should be your top choices.
As a developer, you need to look out for certain critical parameters before beginning a project. Consider the database support, the talent pool of developers, and scalability.
In this article, we will discuss the features of both Laravel and Node JS, and look at which stands out.
What is Laravel?
Laravel is an open-sourced web framework. Server-side functionality includes routing, templating, HTML authentication, and a host of other features. It is written in PHP and comes with reusable PHP libraries and components.
Developers can use Laravel to build an application that has pre-defined architectures, web portals, templates, customized backend logic, and full-stack apps. Additionally, SaaS products can be managed with Laravel.
Features of Laravel
- MVC Architecture Support – One of the key elements of Laravel is its support for MVC architectural patterns. It enables separation between layers of presentation and business logic. MVC pattern comes with several built-in features, improves protection and usability, and enhances the application performance.
- Template engine – Laravel’s templates are known for their lightweight framework, which lets developers seed interactive content into a layout. It has several widgets that integrate JS code and CSS and hence offer stable structures. Templates are designed in such a way that you can construct simple yet complex layouts.
- Security- Any web application must be very secure to succeed. This is one of the deciding factors. Security is one of the best features of Laravel. It uses a salted and hashed password scheme. It ensures that the password is never stored in the database as plain text. To create an encrypted password, it uses the Bcrypt Hashing Algorithm.
- Database Migration system – The migration system can broaden the database structure of the web application without having to recreate each time a code change occurs. A data loss risk is minimized with the help of these features. It allows users not only to use PHP code rather than SQL but also to alter the structure of the database with ease.
What is Node JS?
Node JS is a Javascript-based runtime environment that is a massive open-source server-side tool.
If you are looking for a scalable framework for the single-threaded process used for async programming and web loads that comes with high performance, Node JS is something you may consider. You can also hire a remote node.js developer for your next node.js project.
To enhance the backend capability of a project, you can use Nodejs based frameworks such as Socket.io, Meteor.js, and Express within it. It comes with push-based and real-time architecture that allows developers to build single-page applications, websites, and backend API services.
Features of Node JS
- Event-Driven and Asynchronous – All Node.js libraries are asynchronous, meaning, non-blocking. It means a server that is based on Node.js never has to wait for an API to return the data. When called, the server switches to the next API, and a Node.js event notification function lets the server get answers from the previous API call.
- Scalable and single-threaded – Node.js uses one single-threaded model of looping events. Unlike conventional servers that generate limited threads for request handling, Node.js lets servers react in a non-blocking manner. It uses a single-thread program that can handle a much larger number of requests than conventional servers like Apache HTTP servers.
- Cross-Platform – It is cross-platform and can be processed into an executable involving all of its dependencies.
- Object-oriented – Earlier, Node.js was criticized because of JavaScript that includes tons of procedural spaghetti code. Some frameworks addressed these problems but they had poor coding standards. Now, the classes are integrated into the system, and the code appears syntactically identical to Java, SWIFT, and C#.
Comparison at the feature level Between Laravel and Node JS
Now that we have talked about the features of both and you have a high-level understanding, it makes a lot more sense to compare the features.
1. Performance – Although the Laravel-based application is slightly slower, there is strong proof that the performance can be optimized significantly. One of the ways it can be done is by the usage of cache tags. Cache tags allow applications to load quickly using the pre-stored information.
As discussed above, Node.js inherits non-blocking and asynchronous functions that makes it a perfect environment for small tasks. It is highly suitable for multitasking. The framework can process many requests simultaneously compared to other solutions available in the market.
2. Architecture – MVC architectural pattern allows developers to build simultaneously. For example, the frontend developer can work on the views, and the backend developer can work on the controller logic, at the same time.
Node.js comes with single-threaded event loop architecture. Using this architecture it can handle multiple requests with high performance.
3. Scalability – A lot of apps are using Laravel, and they have been successful in scaling the application without any issues or limitations. Since it uses PHP, the scalability feature is inherited from it.
Even Node.js has the capability to build an application that requires high scalability. Node.js has the best compatibility with microservices, and this makes it quicker and more scalable.
Both the solutions are highly scalable, and you cannot pick one just on this parameter.
4. Database support – It is one of the key features that developers cannot ignore. Currently, Laravel supports 4 different databases – SQL, MYSQL, Postgres, and SQLite.
If you are using one of these databases, you will face no problem in creating a relationship between the web app and the database.
Node.js supports all kinds of databases like NoSQL databases as well as relational databases. It works best with NoSQL databases like MongoDB as it offers more accessibility for Javascript-based backends like Node.js.
5. Ease of Testing – Laravel functions with PHP, and hence you will find many testing tools to ensure you create a bug-free application. Laravel comes with its robust testing documentation that helps you test the application environment at several levels.
There are many testing tools like Mocha, Jasmine that help you test Node.js applications.
Conclusion
You would have guessed by now – there is no clear winner. You will have to pick the one based on the kind of web application you plan to create.
Both the technologies have some excellent features, and we hope you will be able to pick one for your web app based on the above information.
We suggest you choose Laravel if:
- You want your website to be interactive and engaging, consisting of appealing content
- You want an application that’s powerful and sophisticated, but minus any overhead components or additional costs
- For creating customized web applications, you can take advantage of various widgets that support CSS and JS
- You need to build a web application faster and more efficiently by using object-oriented libraries
- Your objective is to build a reliable and SEO-friendly web application with high-security features
We suggest you choose Node.js if:
- You are considering building a web application for streaming video content
- You wish to create a performance-oriented single-page application
- You are interested in developing an online game application
- Your mission is to build web applications with an emphasis on data processing efficiency
- You want to create an application that allows multiple users to interact in real-time
