Best Development Frameworks for Node.js

NW.js (previously known as node-webkit) lets you call all Node.js modules directly from DOM and enables a new way of writing applications with all web technologies. A new way of writing native applications using web technologies, HTML5, CSS3, and WebGL. Full support for the features in the browser. Complete support for Node.js APIs and all third-party modules. Call Node.js modules directly from the DOM and web workers. Available on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. NW.js is based on Chromium and Node.js. Further, you can easily package a web application into a native application. It enables endless possibilities for writing apps. Easy to use, native UI library, frameless window, packaging and distribution, compatible with npm, debugger support, a rich documentation, kiosk mode, file dialogs, and media. Supports web components, drag & drop, WebGL, WebRTC, datalist, and CSS3. NW.js is also data persistent.

Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications. With a myriad of HTTP utility methods and middleware at your disposal, creating a robust API is quick and easy. Express provides a thin layer of fundamental web application features, without obscuring Node.js features that you know and love. Express has no notion of a database. This concept is left up to third-party Node modules, allowing you to interface with nearly any database. In Express, 404 responses are not the result of an error, so the error-handler middleware will not capture them. This behavior is because a 404 response simply indicates the absence of additional work to do; in other words, Express has executed all middleware functions and routes, and found that none of them responded.

Koa is a new web framework designed by the team behind Express, which aims to be a smaller, more expressive, and more robust foundation for web applications and APIs. By leveraging async functions, Koa allows you to ditch callbacks and greatly increase error handling. Koa does not bundle any middleware within its core, and it provides an elegant suite of methods that make writing servers fast and enjoyable. A Koa application is an object containing an array of middleware functions that are composed and executed in a stack-like manner upon request. Koa is similar to many other middleware systems that you may have encountered such as Ruby's Rack, Connect, and so on - however, a key design decision was made to provide high-level "sugar" at the otherwise low-level middleware layer. This improves interoperability, and robustness, and makes writing middleware much more enjoyable.

The powerful, easy-to-use JavaScript testing framework. Easy, zero-configuration setup for any Node.js project and minimal configuration for browser-based projects. Tests can be run anywhere; Node, your browser, even inside a web worker. Test your code where it runs. Flexible APIs for custom assertions, runners, and reporters mean you can extend QUnit to fit your needs. Getting started with QUnit for Node.js projects is quick and easy. First, install the QUnit package using npm. You can now run the test suite through the QUnit CLI. It is recommended that you run the QUnit command via an npm script, which will find the QUnit command automatically from your local dependencies. Check out the API documentation to learn more about the QUnit APIs for organizing tests and making assertions.QUnit follows the Node.js Long-term Support (LTS) schedule and provides support for current, active LTS, and maintenance LTS releases.

Mocha runs in the browser. Every release of Mocha will have new builds of ./mocha.js and ./mocha.css for use in the browser. By adding an argument (usually named done) to it() to a test callback, Mocha will know that it should wait for this function to be called to complete the test. This callback accepts both an Error instance (or subclass thereof) or a falsy value; anything else is invalid usage and throws an error (usually causing a failed test). These reporters expect Mocha to know how many tests it plans to run before execution. This information is unavailable in parallel mode, as test files are loaded only when they are about to be run. In serial mode, tests results will “stream” as they occur. In parallel mode, reporter output is buffered; reporting will occur after each file is completed. In practice, the reporter output will appear in “chunks” (but will otherwise be identical). If a test file is particularly slow, there may be a significant pause while it’s running.

Build practical, production-ready Node.js apps in a matter of weeks, not months. Sails is the most popular MVC framework for Node.js, designed to emulate the familiar MVC pattern of frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the requirements of modern apps, data-driven APIs with scalable, service-oriented architecture. Sails makes it easy to build custom, enterprise-grade Node.js apps. Building on top of Sails means your app is written entirely in JavaScript, the language you and your team are already using in the browser. Sails bundles a powerful ORM, Waterline, which provides a simple data access layer that just works, no matter what database you're using. Sails comes with blueprints that help jumpstart your app's backend without writing any code. Since Sails translates incoming socket messages for you, they're automatically compatible with every route in your Sails app. Sails offers commercial support to accelerate development and ensure best practices in your code.

A Node.js web service framework optimized for building semantically correct RESTful web services ready for production use at scale. restify optimizes for introspection and performance and is used in some of the largest Node.js deployments on Earth. Running at scale requires tracing problems back to their origin by separating noise from the signal. restify is built from the ground up with post-mortem debugging in mind. Staying true to the spec is one of the foremost goals of the project. You will see references to RFCs littered throughout GitHub issues and the codebase. restify is used by some of the industry's most respected companies to power some of the largest deployments of Node.js on planet Earth—the future of Node.js REST development. Setting up a server is quick and easy. Like many other Node. js-based REST frameworks, restify leverages a Sinatra-style syntax for defining routes and the function handlers that service those routes.

Astro is the all-in-one web framework designed for speed. Pull your content from anywhere and deploy it everywhere, all powered by your favorite UI components and libraries. Astro optimizes your website as no other framework can. Leverage Astro's unique zero-JS frontend architecture to unlock higher conversion rates with better SEO. Astro was designed for your content. Fetch data from any CMS or work locally with type-safe Markdown and MDX APIs. Build personal and professional blogs with Astro's built-in Markdown support and content APIs. Stand out from the crowd with a lightning-fast site that ranks higher in SEO. Agencies use Astro to build fast websites, faster. Customize every site with full control over your frontend code. Time is money. Give your customers a better shopping experience and grow your business faster. Put your best foot forward with a portfolio that performs. Help people get to know you (and your work) faster.

Powering the next-generation microservices and applications. Build high-performance, scalable, concurrent TCP, UDP, Unix Socket, HTTP, GRPC services with PHP and easy-to-use coroutine, fibers API. Write your next scalable async application with PHP coroutines and fibers. Compared with other async programming frameworks or software such as Nginx, Tornado, and Node.js, Swoole is a complete async solution that has built-in support for async programming via fibers/coroutines, a range of multi-threaded I/O modules (HTTP server, GRPC, process pools) and support for popular PHP clients like PDO for MySQL, Redis, and CURL. You can use sync or async, coroutine, or fiber API to write the applications or create thousands of lightweight fibers within one Linux process. Swoole enhances the efficiency of your PHP applications and brings you out of the traditional stateless model, enabling you to focus on the development of innovative products at a high scale.

Wasp is a full-stack web application framework that allows developers to build apps faster with less boilerplate code. It integrates React for frontend development, Node.js for backend, and Prisma for database management, enabling developers to focus on the essential parts of their app. The framework’s declarative syntax and simplified configuration mean that developers can describe their app's high-level structure in a .wasp file, and the system automatically handles much of the repetitive work, including routing, authentication, and API management. Wasp's goal is to simplify app development without sacrificing flexibility, making it ideal for building MVPs and production-ready applications.

Enhance ships with everything you need to build a production-ready app. Organize your pages as easily as a desktop folder. Access and store data with simple JavaScript functions. Build reusable components with HTML and scoped CSS. Add client-side interaction just where you need it. Build server-rendered custom elements that seamlessly upgrade to interactive web components. Enhance makes the right way the easy way. Start with a version that works everywhere for everyone. Incrementally upgrade interactive elements from there. The web platform has what you need and never goes out of fashion. Ditch throbbers and loading screens by removing framework bloat and authoring only the code you need. When you learn Enhance, you’re learning development approaches that will last as long as the web does. Enhance apps are designed with deployment in mind. When you're ready to launch, we've got you covered with Begin.

AdonisJS includes everything you need to create a fully functional web app or an API server. So stop wasting hours downloading and assembling hundreds of packages. Use AdonisJS and be productive from day one. AdonisJS is not a minimalist framework. To give your projects a head start, we pack many baseline features within the core of the framework. AdonisJS has a feature-rich routing layer with support for route groups, subdomain-based routing, and resource resources. Controllers are first-class citizens in AdonisJS. They help you remove the inline route handlers to dedicated controller files. Along with the standard body parser, the support for managing file uploads is baked into the framework core. The schema-based validator of AdonisJS provides you with both runtime validations and static type safety. Create traditional-style server-rendered web apps using the home-grown template engine of AdonisJS.

A highly extensible Node.js and TypeScript framework for building APIs and microservices. A brand new LoopBack core to deliver great extensibility and flexibility written in TypeScript/ES2017. Create powerful APIs easily with a new creative experience for defining REST APIs and handling API requests/responses. A new, improved programming model with dependency injection and new concepts such as components, mixins, repositories, etc. make this the most extensible version yet. The LoopBack 4 CLI is a command-line interface that can scaffold a project or extension. The CLI provides the fastest way to get started with a LoopBack 4 project that adheres to best practices. LoopBack is a highly-extensible, open-source Node.js framework that enables you to create dynamic end-to-end REST APIs with little or no coding. Access data from major relational databases, MongoDB, SOAP, and REST APIs. Incorporate model relationships and access controls for complex APIs.

An efficient server implies a lower cost of the infrastructure, a better responsiveness under load and happy users. How can you efficiently handle the resources of your server, knowing that you are serving the highest number of requests possible, without sacrificing security validations and handy development? Enter Fastify. Fastify is a web framework highly focused on providing the best developer experience with the least overhead and powerful plugin architecture, inspired by Hapi and Express. As far as we know, it is one of the fastest web frameworks in town.

Gives you true flexibility by allowing use of any other libraries thanks to modular architecture. An adaptable ecosystem that is a fully-fledged backbone for all kinds of server-side applications. Takes advantage of latest JavaScript features, bringing design patterns and mature solutions to Node.js world. A complete development kit for building scalable server-side apps. In recent years, thanks to Node.js, JavaScript has become the “lingua franca” of the web for both front and backend applications. This has given rise to awesome projects like Angular, React and Vue, which improve developer productivity and enable the creation of fast, testable, and extensible frontend applications. However, while plenty of superb libraries, helpers, and tools exist for Node (and server-side JavaScript), none of them effectively solve the main problem of - Architecture.

TypeORM is an ORM that can run in NodeJS, Browser, Cordova, PhoneGap, Ionic, React Native, NativeScript, Expo, and Electron platforms and can be used with TypeScript and JavaScript (ES5, ES6, ES7, ES8). Its goal is to always support the latest JavaScript features and provide additional features that help you to develop any kind of application that uses databases - from small applications with a few tables to large scale enterprise applications with multiple databases. TypeORM supports both Active Record and Data Mapper patterns, unlike all other JavaScript ORMs currently in existence, which means you can write high quality, loosely coupled, scalable, maintainable applications the most productive way.

Remix is a seamless server and browser runtime that provides snappy page loads and instant transitions by leveraging distributed systems and native browser features instead of clunky static builds. Built on the Web Fetch API (instead of Node) it can run anywhere. It already runs natively on Cloudflare Workers, and of course supports serverless and traditional Node.js environments, so you can come as you are. Page speed is only one aspect of our true goal though. We're after better user experiences. As you’ve pushed the boundaries of the web, your tools haven’t caught up to your appetite. Remix is ready to serve you from the initial request to the fanciest UX your designers can think up. Get fancy with transition hooks and make some pending UI. Remix handles all the state, you simply ask for it.