Choosing the Right Backend: Golang or Node.js?

Go (Golang)

Go, also called Golang, is an open source hone that was developed by Google. It was created to support ease of use, speed, and effectiveness as the twin goals of usability. Here are some highlights:

Concurrent and Scalable:

Concurrent programming is already supported in Go by means of goroutines and channeling. This makes concurrency manageable while it is possible to write concurrent programs without worrying about the threading basics.
Popular camps: it’s successfully used in the construction of large and coherent systems, such as webs servers and, recently, microservices.

Static Typing:

Go is however statically typed and so the type checking is performed at compile time. This helps to detect mistakes on time and hence originates high quality code at runtime.
The type system is minimal yet powerful so there will be no confusion regarding code readability and flexibility.

Fast Compilation:

Go compiles very fast so it is useful when the team wants to test different changes frequently.
The binary resulting from compilation is also quite small, which would be convenient for use in popping into containers.

Standard Library:

It has a standard library that is well stocked to meet many aspect such as networking, file Input/ Output, cryptography and so on.
These packages will enable developers to create applications that would be very stable while rarely or not always depending on third party libraries.

Community and Ecosystem:

Members of the Go community display generous and quick responses toward each other. The Github platform offers numerous open-source projects together with libraries that are available for access.
Packaged tools such as Gin (for the development of web applications) and Echo (for building RESTful APIs) make it easy to develop Go apps.

Node.js

Node.js is an opensource cross- platform environment that allows the JavaScript developers to run JavaScript code beyond the browser. Here’s what you need to know about Node.js:

Event-Driven and Non-Blocking:

All these are developed basically on the V8 JavaScript engine and the most important characteristic of Node.js is its event driven, non-blocking I/O model.
In terms of dealing with asynchronous tasks, it is one of the best, so it can be used for creating real-time applications APIs and chatbots.

NPM (Node Package Manager):

NPM is the Node.js package manager, which allows for access to a very large number of reusable code modules.
The NPM comes in handy due to its ability to make the installation of third-party libraries straight forward for developers.

Express.js:

Express is one of the most widely used web application frameworks on Node.js.
It makes routing Koa simpler, management of middleware functions and Requests/Responses more manageable so the developers can implement rest APIs along with web servers more efficiently.

Single-Threaded Event Loop:

Node.js operates only a single thread but has an event loop for making a number of connections possible.
It is most useful for things that spend more time blocking, such as fetching an HTTP request or a database results.

Full-Stack JavaScript:

Node.js means that it is possible to code with JavaScript on the backend and in the browser as well.
There are two advantages of having this full-stack capability: the development process is less complex and the code can be used repeatedly.

Comparatively, it can be concluded that while using Go and Node.js, you get a set of parameters that can act as the strengths of the selected language. Go is great to write system-level programs and Node.js is mostly appropriate for developing real-time applications and API. However you are free to go with the one that suit your need of the project you are working on !!! 😊