NodeJS vs Python : Which One Is Better

Hey programming geeks, here is an awesome and marvelous post of NodeJS vs Python. In this post we will discuss about what is NodeJS and Python, their merits/demerits, why we use them, their comparison and many more.

As there are lots of programming languages and their demand is growing rapidly so in this way we face lots of problems choosing them. All the languages have its own merits and demerits so the only criteria for choosing them is that what is your project’s requirements. Once you discovered your project’s requirements, only then you can choose right option for your projects.

Here we will discuss about only two languages NodeJS and Python. We will try to find the answer of most obvious questions – Which is better and why? Is there any similarities between them or not? where can we use them? And What are the major differences between them. So let’s begin without any delay.This NodeJS vs Python tutorial might be lengthy but i am pretty sure you will find it beneficial and get lots of information from it, so please keep a little bit patience with this tutorial.

NodeJS vs Python Tutorial : Let’s The War Begin

First of all we will discuss about NodeJS, then Python and then compare both of them.

What Is NodeJS ?

Overview

• NodeJS is an open source runtime environment for server side and networking applications.
• It is not a programming language, it is an environment allowing JavaScript code to run on the server side and not in a browser.
• It uses Google JavaScript V8 engine to run the code.
• NodeJS provides an event-driven architecture and Non-blocking I/O that is optimized and scalable.
• It is a cross platform environment and can run on OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and multiple operating systems.

NodeJS Architecture

As we seen earlier NodeJS is a run time environment for executing javascript codes. But what is the run time environment really. Let’s see it –

Before NodeJS we use javascript only to build applications runs inside our browser. So every browser there what we called is javascript(JS) engine that takes javascript code and convert it to code that a computer can understand.

For example

Internet Explorer uses Chakra, Firefox uses SpiderMonkey and chrome uses v8. And because of this varieties of engine that some time javascript code behave differently on one browser or another.

Now a browser provide a runtime environment for javascript code. For example you probably know in browsers we have the windows or a document object(document.getElementById(”);) . These objects allow us to work with the environment in which the code is running.Now after 2009 only way to execute javascript code was inside our  browser. In 2009 Rahn Dahl creator of NodeJS came up with the brilliant idea. He thought it will be great to execute javascript outside the browser. So he took Google v8 Engine which is the fastest javascript and embedded it inside a C++ program and called that program Node. so similar to a browser Node is runtime environment with javascript code.

It contains a javascript engine that can execute javascript code but it also has certain objects that provide an environment for a javascript code. These objects are different from the different environment objects that we have in browser. For example if we don’t have document.getElementById(”); instead we have other objects that give us more interesting capabilities such as we can read the file system(fs.readFile()), listen for requests(http.createServer()) and so on. We can do stuffs like that inside a browser.

So in essence NodeJS is a program that include a v8 javascript engine plus some additional module that have capabilities not available inside browsers. We can work with the file system or the network or so on.

Features Of NodeJS

Now we will discuss features of NodeJS. NodeJS has many features which are listed below with a detailed explanation –

• Asynchronous and Event-driven – In a asynchronous, when request is made to server, server continues to process other requests instead of waiting for the current request. When request processing completes, the response is sent to the caller using callback mechanism.
• Very Fast – As NodeJS is built on Google chrome’s VB javascript engine so it’s library is very fast in code execution.
• Single Threaded but Highly Scalable – NodeJS follows single thread mechanism as we know with event looping. Event mechanism helps the server to respond in a non-blocking way and makes the server highly scalable as opposed to traditional servers.
• No Buffering –NodeJS cuts down the overall processing time while uploading video or audio files. Node.js applications never buffer any data. These applications simply output the data in chunks.

Reasons To Use NodeJS

Now we will discuss why should we use NodeJS? So there is reasons listed below –

• Cross Platform –NodeJS is a truly cross platform that means you can run your NodeJS web servers  on Linux, Mac or Windows. The inability to do this can be a real ball buster.
• One Of The Most Active Development Communities – NodeJS has quickly risen as one of the most popular and motivated development communities around. It’s still considered  a very viable alternative to Python, Ruby, C# and Java.
• NodeJS is not a Bloated Framework – NodeJS does not come with the bell and whistles of some full stack frameworks out there. In facts, it’s not even a framework at all. If you need authentication, templates, database access you will be writing all that stuffs yourself. Basically NodeJS can be as slim as you need it to be.
• The Future is Lean – The future of web development resides with keeping your server as slim as possible. Basically your modern day server should be delivering JSON data and NodeJS does it well.
• Used By Many Modern Day Companies – Lots of companies are using NodeJS. Their websites are completely created with NodeJS. Some of them are – LinkedIn, Wal-Mart, PayPal, Uber, Netflix etc.
• It’s Really Fast – Non-Blocking I/O means it can do what you need a server to do very well. It take requests and never block itself from receiving more requests while fulfilling it’s queue.

NodeJS Success Stories

Now we will see success stories of NodeJS. NodeJS is very popular and so it is adopting by various companies. Some well-known companies that are made with NodeJS are listed below.

PayPal

• It is an online payment company.
• It created two teams one is java team and another one is javascript team to develop their applications simultaneously.
• What they found out that the javascript team build the product both the faster and more efficiently.

GoDaddy.com

• This is an application hosting website which use NodeJS for building quality applications, deploying new features , writing units and integration testing easily.

Linkedin

• It is a social media website.
• When it went to rebuild their mobile applications, they used NodeJS for their mobile application server which acts as a REST endpoint for mobile applications.

ebay

• It is an e-commerce website.
• They have two primary requirement- the first is to make application as real time as possible.
• And the second was to orchestrate a huge numbers of eBay specific services.

Netflix

• It is a online TV-series and video streaming website.
• It used javascript and NodeJS to transform their website into a single page application.

Uber

• It is a cab service.
• It has built its massive driver/rider matching system on NodeJS distributed web architecture.

NodeJS Job Trends

Now let us move forward and look at the job trends of NodeJS. So take a look on graph.

This graph shows present increase in job posting per year of NodeJS. So as you can see the rising curve, by this curve you can easily figure out that, if you are expecting a career in server side web development NodeJS  is a technology you should target and start working with.

Until now we have seen about NodeJS but now we will discuss about Python. So let’s move forward and grab the information of Python.

What Is Python ?

Overview

• Python was created by Guido Rossum in 1989 and is very easy to learn.
• It is an interpreted, object-oriented, high-level programming language with dynamic semantics.

Features of python

• Simple and easy to learn- The reason behind python is simple and easy to learn is that it resembles english language a lots and we check out other programming languages compare to them it is quite easy to read and write program in python.
• Free and Open Source- It follows FLOSS(Free/Libre and Open Source Software) philosophy. It means one can freely distribute copies of this software, read it’s source code, modify it etc.
• High-Level Language- When we talk about high level languages it basically means that you can write your code directly using english and python will intern convert into the low-level machine language.When we talk about low-level languages it basically refers to the assembly level language. One does not need to bother about the low-level details like memory locations etc while writing python script.
• Portable- If we talk about portability of python then Python is supported by most of platforms present in the industry today. It  could be Linex,Windows,Macintosh, Solaris, OS/2, Amiga, BeOS, Windows CE, etc.
• Support Different Programming Paradigm- Python supports procedure-oriented programming as well as object-oriented programming.
• Extensible- Python code can invoke C and C++ libraries, can be called from and C++ program, can integrate with java and .NET components.

Also check-Best Python Frameworks To Learn In 2018

Reasons To Use Python

As we know now python is a most popular programming language. You can think why this is so much used? So the answer is listed below-

• Data Science – It is well suited for data manipulation and analysis.Python also deals with tabular, matrix as well as statistical data.
• Artificial Intelligence – In Python, almost every idea can be quickly validated through 20-30 lines of code (same for JS with libs). Therefore, it is a pretty useful language for the sake of AI.
• Big Data – Consequently in the current era of big data, python is getting more popularity due to its easy-to-use features which supports big data processing and analytic process. Python has very rich modules for big data.
• Game Development – A major advantage of using Python for game development is that the language is very easy to learn. Game development in python is a pretty easier task than doing the same in another languages.We can make 2D as well as 3D games.
• Computer Vision – So the python is one of the important language for computer vision. We can do many interesting things such as face detection, color detection  etc using python.
• Browser Automation- By using python you can post status in facebook and other social media. You can directly login with your social media account in any websites.
• GUI Development – Simple syntax, modular architecture, rich text processing tools and the ability to work on multiple operating systems that makes python a desirable choice for developing desktop-based applications.

 

Python Success Stories

here are 8 companies that make use of python in different domains.

YouTube

• It is the one of most popular video sharing service present today.
• youtube is largely written in python.
• So there python is used as scripting language as well as programming language.

Google

• It uses python to improve its web search system.
• So python there help to get better search result as such.

NASA

• NASA, Los Alamos, Fermilab, JPL and others use python scientific programming tasks.

NSA

• It is the National Security Academy of US.
• It uses python for cryptography and intelligence analysis.

Raspberry Pi

• It is a single board computer promotes python as its educational language.

BitTorrent

• It is a peer-to-peer file sharing system began its life as a python program.

Dropbox

• Dropbox storage service codes both its server and desktop client software primarily in python.

Netflix

• Netflix and Yelp have both documented the role of python in their software infrastructure.

NodeJS vs Python – A Detailed Comparison

When you think about backend development, Python and Node.js are the first things that come to your mind. Python is a programming language while NodeJS is an environment that allows JavaScript code to run on the server side and not in a browser. It is based on Chrome’s V8 Engine, which runs on Google Chrome. So now we will see NodeJS vs Python in tabular format.

Topics	Python	NodeJS
Definition	It is a programming language.	It is an environment that allows JavaScript code to run on the server side and not in a browser.
Scalability and Concurrency	It does not support asynchronous programming by default, but it supports different features with which asynchronous processing can be easily achieved.	It supports asynchronous programming.This feature guarantees smooth Node.js scalability within simple web apps
Learning Curve	Learning python is easier because of their simple syntax and more compact code. Python requires fewer lines of code than Node.js to reach the same result.	NodeJS is not a language, it is an environment for running javascript codes. so dealing with NodeJS you should have prior knowledge of javascript.
Performance	It is not so much faster as compare to NodeJS.	It is significantly faster as it is based on Chrome V8 engine that is a very fast and powerful engine.
Error Handling	Exception Handling in Python is easier and takes less time to debug and fix errors.	Not so good as compared to python.
First Released	It was first released in 1991.	It was first released in 2009.
Real Time Usage	It is used in Real Time data processing. python provides PyRealtime package for developing real time applications.	It is used in maintenance and handling of large volumes of customer data.
Usage	It is mainly used in web programming, desktop applications, gaming etc.	It is used as server side scripting language.

Conclusion

The aim of this post was not to prove that python is better than NodeJS or vice-versa. Our main aim was only that to differentiate between them. We tried to show which language is suitable for a particular problem. Both NodeJS and python have their own capabilities and areas of application.Both NodeJS and Python have rightfully earned their place in the software development world. The choice of the main technology for a project depends on multiple factors – application type, industry sector, performance requirements, developers experience, and so on. Hence, next time if you have to choose the right language for your project then choose it smartly.

So guys this was all about NodeJS vs Python tutorial.I hope you all will be satisfied with this post and have got a lot of informations about NodeJS and python. So friends if you have any doubt regarding this post then just comment, i will try to solve your issues. And if you like this post then share as much as possible with your friends on various social media platforms.Thanks 🙂