Ruby on Rails vs Node.js A Head-to-Head Comparison

Jul 21, 2022
Ruby on Rails vs Node.js

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What exactly is Node.js?

Node.js's website homepage, showing two green download buttons for macOS users.
Node.js's homepage.

How does Node manage libraries? Libraries

The massive library is open source and free. It is rapidly growing in terms of volume increasing the Node.js community stronger with each increasing day.

A very well-known library software packages available in NPM is Express.js, a framework for rapid creation and deployment of apps along with APIs. It's a basic Node.js web-based application framework which offers a variety of choices for both online applications as well as for mobile devices that are downloaded by more than 22 million downloads on NPM every week.

Here's the code for an easy Node.js along with An Express API:

const express = require('express') const app = express() app.get('/', function (req, res) res.send("A simple GET response") ) app.listen(3000)

In the following code, we are importing express.js in addition to creating a straightforward GET API. In the last line, we are calling listen() on 3000. So that the program can operate at the port 3000.

Express.js makes it simple to develop a variety of web-based software in a brief amount of time. In order to handle the requests of clients it provides an easy route system. Additionally, the framework has middleware which is responsible of making decisions and giving the appropriate response to the request of the customer.

Companies that make use of Node.js

The most well-known companies that employ Node.js are:

  • Netflix: Netflix began utilizing Node.js to offer high-volume Internet streaming to more than 182 million customers, in addition, they planned to extend the application of Node.js to encompass content creation.
  • Uber This cause is due to its synchronous primitives, as well as its straightforward single-threaded processing. Uber's core journey execution engine was created with Node.js.
  • PayPal: When replacing Java, PayPal chose to use JavaScript directly from its browser and use it as the backend server for web-based applications.
  • NASA after an tragic incident in Space, NASA decided to make use of Node.js for security of their data , and possibly even avoid the loss of life.
  • LinkedIn due to its efficiency and its scalability Linkedln chose Node.js and discontinued making use of Ruby on Rails.
Image showing the logo of the popular companies that use Node.js, with the Node.js logo on the left..
Organizations that utilize Node.js. (Image source: Coruscate)
Node.js is especially well-suited for writing systems that have the entirety of their information stored in memory.
Kris Kowal, Software Engineer at Uber

What exactly do you mean by Ruby on Rails?

Ruby on Rails -- also known as Rails also known as RoR -- is the most renowned open-source web-based application framework. It is developed in Ruby and is licensed under it being licensed under the MIT license. The framework was first introduced in the year 2004 and is known for its code efficiency as well as its speed.

The Ruby on Rails homepage showing a section of Ruby code open in a code editor.
ROR's homepage.

Enterprises that utilize Ruby on Rails

Most popular companies that utilize Ruby on Rails include:

  • Airbnb Airbnb employing Ruby on Rails since its creation. This framework plays a crucial role in Airbnb's tech stack.
  • GitHub: The the backend of GitHub utilizes Ruby on Rails, with over 200 million repositories of code and 32 million users per month. Seven years have passed since the application was created by its creators.
  • Shopify: Shopify is a fantastic model of an innovative, yet easy to arrange and user-friendly Ruby on Rails online marketplace and has more than 820,000 merchants using the platform.
  • Fiverr Fiverr answer is yes, Fiverr was also the first to adopt Ruby on Rails when it was first released, and it's still the technology which powers their online marketplace.

If you've got an in-depth grasp of both technologies, let's discuss the pros and cons of each.

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails: Its Pros as well as Pros and

It's certainly a rich and robust, feature-rich framework Ruby on Rails has its own drawbacks.

The pros to Ruby on Rails

There are numerous advantages to the use of Ruby on Rails. We've listed the top ones below:

  • Speed of development Its highly-structured architecture of modules, a streamlined management system, and its expressiveness and compact structure that's integral to the Ruby language makes it easy for programmers to develop applications quickly.
  • Big infrastructure: Ruby on Rails has a built-in web server as well as databases generators, which make creating websites a breeze.
  • Best technique Rails was created for the purpose of establishing the best practices in web development. Rails comes with all the necessary modules and libraries to follow these guidelines in your development projects.
  • Code quality It is said that the quality of third-party Ruby code is far higher than that of other languages.

Pros and Cons of Ruby on Rails

There are a few cons for Ruby on Rails are highlighted in the next paragraphs:

  • A little less flexibilities The process of customizing Ruby on Rails to create a one-of-a-kind application with unique characteristics could be difficult.
  • Performance and runtime speed: One of the most common reasons to avoid Ruby on Rails is its low performance in the runtime. This means that scaling applications is difficult. This is also among the primary reasons Twitter is no longer using Ruby on Rails for its search engine.
  • Boot speed: Most developers complain about Rails' boot speed. It may take a lengthy period of time to begin depending on the amount of gem dependencies and documents.
  • Difficult debugging The application could be difficult to debug the problems in an Rails application because of Ruby on Rails' complexity and various layers. The process of identifying a problem during the process can take quite a while.

Pros and Cons of Node.js

Node.js is regarded as a flexible framework which can be tailored to fit every need. However, it also has drawbacks.

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The pros of Node.js

Here are our top selections of Node.js's advantages:

  • Community Active communities active means a lot of help and feedback. Node.js is well-supported by an extensive users' community. NPM, the Node's package management system is among the most popular and rapidly growing software registry. It comes with a range of libraries as well as reusable templates that you can incorporate into your projects.
  • very adjustable: Node.js is known for its extensibility, which means that developers are able to modify and extend it according to the requirements of their particular projects.

Cons of Node.js

Below are a few of Node.js's drawbacks that could cause it to be a poor choice for your requirements:

  • The API is unstable: Node.js suffers from infrequent API updates. This leads to a large number of code modifications, this is the major disadvantage of using Node.js.
  • Immaturity of tooling: Although the core Node.js modules are very robust, the vast majority of the programs that are available in the NPM repository do not meet the standards and not well-documented. Therefore, selecting the correct option for your needs could be a challenge.
  • Not suited for task which require lots of CPU The inability of Node.js to run tasks that are CPU bound is the third major problem currently. It's only for I/O-related tasks (like web servers).
  • Issue with callbacks Callbacks, or the processes that are executed at the time each task waiting to be completed they are a major component of Node.js. The code's quality can be directly affected by having a many queued tasks running in the background with their own distinct callback.

Node.js is compared to Ruby on Rails: Head-to-Head A Comparative

Once you've got a awareness of these two methods We'll go further and examine them side-by-side.

Performance

Although performance may not be an issue with smaller projects, it's crucial to take into consideration the performance of large, complex projects. Node.js excels with regards to performance. Node.js has V8's engine created by Google and is significantly more efficient, specifically when it comes to IO large tasks. The framework is also well-known for creating extremely speedy and effective programs due to the fact that it employs event-driven architecture along with non-blocking (asynchronous) operations that are executed on a single thread. Node.js applications are able to handle greater number of requests thanks to the framework's ability to manage the heavier workloads of servers.

Community

In terms of obtaining support and input for these two technologies, they are backed by a large developer community that is.

According to a survey of the developers conducted by Stack Overflow, Node.js is among the most sought-after technology used by developers across all across the world. The tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have contributed significantly to Node.js. Node.js environment. There is a wide range of community forums that are available for Node.js including Github, Stack Overflow along with Reddit.

Job Opportunities

Scalability

Node.js is used to develop apps that are extremely adaptable. Multiple concurrent requests are managed via blocking-free I/O and an event-driven approach.

Node.js can be said to be more flexible as compared to Ruby, thanks to the cluster module. It's spawned within clusters using abstractions, which are based on the work load of the program that uses the least numbers of CPUs.

Scaling Ruby on Rails is possible, however, it requires greater resources than other widely used backend frameworks. However, this shouldn't stop anyone from making use of Ruby on Rails for your own development.

Here are some suggestions to help you increase the size of the size of your Ruby on Rails application:

  • The built-in action pages of Rails and fragment caching can be used to their greatest capacity. In addition, you could make use of Memcache to save the results of your database which could otherwise be available for retrieval.
  • In addition, you could make use of third-party software such as Docker as well as Kubernetes to allow you to expand your app without hassle.
  • Consider load tests as an element of your pre-deployment procedure. It will let you examine how long each step runs and identify areas where there's the potential for improvements.

Popularity

The popularity of your stack is another factor to take into consideration in the development of a modern product or application. It's generally the more popular it is and the more popular it is, the more it will be supported by the community.

Affirmed by Google Trends , Ruby on Rails was quite popular from 2005 to 2009 however following that, it slowly lost its the popularity. Node.js however, on contrary has been growing in popularity since 2017. That means there's plenty of large number of people that would love to utilize and understand more about.

Image showing the google trends comparing the popularity of Node.js and Ruby on Rails on Google search engine.
The graph shows how well-known Node.js is as well as Ruby on Rails on Google search engine.

If you're looking for the most popular option at the process of making, Node.js is your winner.

Node.js Vs Ruby on Rails: Which is the best?

We've now discussed the specifics about Ruby on Rails vs Node.js We're now ready to make a decision! Let's take a last glance at which framework could be best suited to which project.

What is the best time to use Node.js

How to Use Ruby on Rails

Rails is a platform based on Ruby. Rails can be a fantastic solution for CPU-intensive applications where the development process is swift. Rails can be a good choice if you plan to build an online store or social networking site with the capacity to handle a lot of visitors.

Summary

Both Node.js and Ruby on Rails are powerful frameworks to build apps and websites. It can be very challenging to select a winner. Entrepreneurs as well as startups must look at their business plans, and weigh the benefits and cons of each.

If you're worried about scaling or speed, Node.js might be a suitable alternative. However, if you're trying to develop applications that are able to manage a huge quantity of data or processes that require CPI, Ruby on Rails may be the better platform for you.

Are you planning to use Node.js and Ruby on Rails for your future project? What made you choose between these two options? Comment here!

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