Express Js is a web framework used for creating server side code in Node Js. It is a lightweight framework, which offers almost all the necessary and basic features like routing and middlewares out of the box. Nowadays, the number of organizations using Express Js is increasing rapidly.
Advantages of using Express Js
- Lightweight : It is a lightweight framework of Node Js for creating web servers. As it is based on Node Js, it offers all the features of Node Js with less coding.
- Time saving : It is developed to reduce the development time which generally takes, when we create applications in Node Js. Express Js provides many features of Node Js in less lines of code. There are many tasks, which in Node Js we have to do manually, but here in Express Js, we have various inbuilt functions available for that.
- Huge Library : Another feature of Express Js is the availability of libraries. As the community of Express Js is large, everyday new packages are getting developed.
- Realtime applications : Express Js is used heavily in realtime applications. It is best suited for realtime user interaction systems, due its non-blocking asynchronous event-driven model.
- Learning curve : As it is based on JS, it becomes easier for developers knowing JS to learn Express Js. Another benefit is that we can develop the whole application (frontend and backend) using a single language.
Disadvantages of Express Js
- Callback hell: For new developers, it becomes hard to grasp the asynchronous nature of JS. They find it difficult to manage the callbacks. Callback hell is a condition, where we have multiple callbacks nested inside each other and every callback waits for another callback. Eventually resulting a non readable and difficult to maintain code.
- Less features: As it is a lightweight framework, many of the features are not available out of the box and we have to install multiple packages to get those features.
- Lack of strong typing: Express Js doesn’t have strong type checking while compilation, which results in complex bugs.
- Error handling: Although Express Js has excellent error handling capabilities, but sometimes it becomes hard for new developers to handle errors with the code containing multiple callbacks and promises.