MEAN is an acronym for MongoDB, Express.js, Angular.js, and Node.js. It is an alternative to LAMP and is built on JavaScript technologies. JavaScript is a programming language for backend and frontend development. The following are the roles of the MEAN stack components:
MongoDB is a database that works well with JSON, a type of JavaScript for reading data.
Express.js is a framework that provides open-source tools for building backend applications.
Node.js is a platform that runs JavaScript applications.
Angular.js is an open-source framework for developing frontend applications.
MEAN stack compared to LAMP stack
MEAN and LAMP stacks are great open-source software stacks for different types of web applications. A MEAN stack is suitable for web applications that involve heavy logic processing on the frontend. Meanwhile, a LAMP stack is great for large-scale complex websites that handle heavy traffic. For example, developers use a MEAN stack to build a video-streaming web application but choose a LAMP stack for an ecommerce web application.