What is express js?

What is express js?

Express.js is a free and open-source web application framework for most popular Node.js. Express.js only needs javascript, and it becomes very easy for developers to build web applications and API without any effort.

It has become the standard server framework for node.js. Express.js is the backend part of something known as the Mean stack. The Mean stack is a free and open-source JavaScript software stack for building dynamic web sites and web applications which has the following components:

• MongoDB
• Express.js
• Angular.js
• Node.js

Why Express js?

Since the beginning of JavaScript, web developers have regarded it strictly as a client-side web language. It has helped to make small web-based applications and functional features in web-pages.

It has made server-side JS coding. It rocked the world of LAMP based web-development, it almost took over all other LAMP server APIs in terms of performance. NodeJS is powerful, flexible, and it is relatively easy to code. But who wanted something less complicated, simpler, not as powerful but faster, the ExpressJS framework was invented.

Without Express.js, you have to write your own code to build a routing component which is a time consuming process. Express.js offers simplicity, flexibility, efficiency, minimalism, and scalability to the programmers. It also has the advantage of powerful performance as it is a framework of Node.js.

Node.js carries all the executions really fast with the help of Event Loop that avoids any kind of inefficiency. The powerful performance of Node.js and the ease of coding using Express.js are the most popular features loved by web application developers. Since Express.js is written in Javascript, you can build websites, web applications, or even mobile apps using it.

5 Features of Express.js: 

1. Routing: ExpressJS gives a highly advanced routing mechanism which helps to store the state of the web page with the help of their URLs.
2. Middleware: It is a part of the program that has access to the database, client request, and the other middlewares. Middleware is mainly responsible for the systematic organization of various functions of Express.js.
3. Debugging: This is for the successful development of web applications. ExpressJS makes debugging easier by providing a debugging mechanism that has the ability to pinpoint the exact part of the web application which has bugs.
4. Templating: ExpressJS gives templating engines that allow the developers to build dynamic content on the web pages by building HTML templates on the server-side.
5. Faster Server side development: Express.js provides many commonly used features of Node.js in the form of functions that can be readily used anywhere in the program. This removes the need to code for several hours and thus saves time.

Difference Between Express.js and Node.js: