In today’s tech-fast times, everything happens with just a tap on your screens, whether you want to pay the electricity bill or book a dinner table for a romantic date. This is the reason users’ expectations are always increasing with increasing technological advancements. Nowadays, users need rapid, convenient, and seamless services. As a result, people are loving and opting for on-demand apps, eventually leading to a high surge.
Forbes reports that the on-demand economy in the current landscape is attracting more than 22.4 million customers annually. whoa! This supports the argument that organizations in the on-demand economy will enhance in the coming time, making the real-time functionality of an on-demand application very crucial, and a trusted application development company swears by it. Hence, Node.JS is the main character in achieving this objective.
Node.js is gaining huge attraction as a platform for building real-time applications. You can experience ample advantages of Node.js development services, as Node.js is asynchronous and follows an event-driven strategy, which makes it an ideal option for real-time projects.
It’s the best option to build real-time web applications that replied immediately to all the requests, even when a good amount of people are using them simultaneously. Interesting, isn’t it?
Since the seed of curiosity is sown, let’s water it.
So, keep reading to find out why every reputable application development company adores and prefers Node.js for developing real-time apps, and how to build one.
Starting with the basics, of course!
What is Node.js?
Node.js is a server-side, open-source JavaScript runtime environment, initiated in 2009 by Ryan Dahl. And since its inception, the Node.js server-side JavaScript environment is the one-stop solution for many problems. It functions with the V8 JavaScript engine, the heart of Google Chrome, external the browser. As an outcome, Node.js is remarkably fast.
Node.JS applications run in only process, without building a new thread for every request. The standard library consists of a collection of asynchronous I/O primitives that impede JavaScript code from blocking, Moreover, Node.js libraries are often built following non-blocking patterns, thus blocking every activity is the exception rather than the standard. Hence, rather than blocking the thread and wasting any CPU (Central Processing Units) cycles also waiting for a response, Node.js leads to an I/O action, including, accessing the filesystem, accessing a database, or reading from the network, Node.js will restart the operations as soon as the response comes back.
This enables Node.js to manage hundreds and thousands of parallel connections with a single server. And all without adding any overhead of thread concurrency management. Therefore, making Node.js an exceptional option for building real-time applications, helping companies to experience a plethora of advantages, including usability and better efficiency.
What is Real-Time Application?
A real-time application enables end users to acquire and engage with any information as it occurs, without any lags or hold-ups. It helps improve the user experience by delivering spontaneous and exact information, collaboration, improving reliability, and, eventually, enhancing efficiency.
Why Node.js is Best for Building Real-Time Apps?
Here, are some advantages of developing real-time applications using Node.JS:
- Scalability and Rapidness
Node is based on JavaScript, so believe me, it runs the app more rapidly than JS. It helps easily handle the vast number of clients’ requests; as it acquires an app having an event loop and single-threaded model.
- Supports for Event-Based Server
All the real-time apps manage several real-time users at the same time. Hence, Node.js development assists in those responses that rely on the event-driven server.
- SEO Friendly
It’s the most important aspect of today’s time. So, if you have an app that is SEO friendly and has been built with Node.js, it can help render better engagement and enhanced site visibility. And real-time apps built with Nodejs acquire high-end performance, high speed, and better user experience, which helps the app to rank as per the SEO standards.
- Data Sync
The experienced web app development company uses the non-blocking I/O functionality. It assists in speedy data transmission between client and server.
- Sharing and Reusing Feature
Node is itself a programming language based on real-time programming language, so it helps the microservice architecture. All Node.js development service providers easily utilize library code further and share it in multiple projects. Therefore, it encourages more efficiency and saves developers’ time.
Frameworks and Libraries for Creating Real-Time Apps with Node.js
Following are some best frameworks and libraries, developers use while developing real-time apps using Node.JS:
- Sails.js
Sails.js, also referred to as Sails, is a real-time MVC (Model View Controller) framework used for building enterprise-ready Node.js apps. The Sail took inspiration from the Ruby on Rails MVC framework. It also includes WebSocket support which is quite innovative and ideal for creating real-time chat apps, games, and more.
- Feather.js
Feather.js is a lightweight Node.js web framework that uses TypeScript or JavaScript to build REST APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and real-time apps. It’s jammed with multiple features and functionalities that help in developing next-gen mobile and web apps. Hence, developers use FeathersJS to manage the data using RESTful connections and resources.
- Socket.IO
Socket.io is a popular JavaScript library for building real-time applications and creating two-way communication between servers and web clients. When a client installs Socket.IO in their browser and a server also installs the Socket.IO package, it makes room for two-way communication. While data delivery can take place in different formats, JSON is the easiest.
Now, come the heart and soul of our article. Here, we’ll learn about how to build real-time apps using Node.js (And it’s a bit technical – coding and all).
How to Build Real-Time Apps with Node.js?
Let’s start, then!
The following command installs the express, eggs, and socket.io
npm install express js socket.io –save
The following command installs nodemon
npm install nodemon –save-dev
Add the following script to the package.json file to start the program with nodemon-
“scripts”: {
”start”: “nodemon app.js”,
},
Start the app using the following command in the command line-
npm run start
The next step is to build an application structure. For this, you need to construct a few directories and a file app.js. After this process, the application structure will look as follows-
|–app.js
|–views
|–node_modules
|–package.json
|–public
|–css
|–js
- app.js: file is used to host server-side code
- views: a folder containing the views (es)
- node_modules: dependencies are installed here
- package.json: npm configuration file
- public: It’s the directory, used to store assets such as images CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) files, and javascript files (for the client side)
Now, open the file app.js and paste the following code to get the express running-
const express = require(‘express’)
const socketio = require(‘socket.io’)
const app = express()
app.set(‘view engine’, ‘ejs’)
app.use(express.static(‘public’))
app.get(‘/’, (req, res)=> {
res.render(‘index’)
})
const server = app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000, () => {
console.log(“server is running”)
})
When you design express and use ejs as a template framework, sockets.io initialization also takes place. For this, you need to include the below coding format to finish the app.js document.
Next, you should initialize socket.io from the express. After the initialization process, you need to set up an event utilizing io.on() which can be triggered by each new connection to the socket.
Hence, to design the frontend, you need to check how the connection to the server works, and how to send out and capture socket events.
Create an index.ejs and write this code to create a template in the views folder-
<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
<title>Simple realtime chatroom</title>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.5.0/css/bootstrap.min.css”>
</head>
<body>
<div class=”container”>
<div class=”title”>
<h3>Realtime Chat Room</h3>
</div>
<div class=”card”>
<div class=”card-header”>Anonymous</div>
<div class=”card-body”>
<div class=”input-group”>
<input type=”text” class=”form-control” id=”username” placeholder=”Change your username” >
<div class=”input-group-append”>
<button class=”btn btn-warning” type=”button” id=”usernameBtn”>Change</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class=”message-box”>
<ul class=”list-group list-group-flush” id=”message-list”></ul>
<div class=”info”></div>
</div>
<div class=”card-footer”>
<div class=”input-group”>
<input type=”text” class=”form-control” id=”message” placeholder=”Send new message” >
<div class=”input-group-append”>
<button class=”btn btn-success” type=”button” id=”messageBtn”>Send</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<script src=”https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/socket.io/2.0.4/socket.io.js”></script>
<script src=”/js/chatroom.js”></script>
</body>
</html>
http://localhost:3000/in the browser will show how that app would look like.
The next step is then to connect the frontend to the server to make the interface function. For this, inside the js folder of the public library, and the JavaScript file, you must connect to the socket from the frontend by executing the following code-
(function connect(){
let socket = io.connect(‘http://localhost:3000’)
})()
Now, you’ll find the app working and can also create the functions you desire.
In a Nutshell!
I have covered all the necessary information about using Node.js for developing real-time applications. So, now we can conclude that Node.js is an ideal option for organizations looking to create real-time apps due to its advantages, like, reliability, single code, powerful data handling, scalability, and many more.
Hence, if now you’re keen to develop a real-time application, then I’ll suggest you give Node.js a try (it will be worth it). And don’t worry, you’re not alone in this journey, you can opt for the best Node.js development services, the experts there will help turn your dreams into beautiful reality and develop your visionary app. Eventually, helping you grow your customer base.
That’s all from my end.
I hope you liked the article. Thank you for your precious time.
Happy Learning!
