Why Choose Express For Enterprise Web App Development
Tags: webdev, node
Published: 2021-06-02 11:34:14

Enterprise applications need a reliable backend to keep the disruptions minimum and ensure zero downtime.  Node.Js is one such framework that offers a reliable, scalable, and flexible backend. However, if you are looking for something more minimalistic, Express is simply the best option.

Express.Js is a backend framework that is based on Node.Js technology and offers rapid development for enterprise applications. It uses a modular approach at its core to allow developers to leverage MVC(Model-View-Controller) architecture. 

With the modular approach development of enterprise applications becomes faster and needs less effort in coding. Still, wondering whether Express is the right backend framework for your projects? Well, here is a comprehensive take on the Node-based minimalistic framework.

##What is Express?

Express.js or Express is an open-source server-side framework built for Node.js. Written in Javascript, it is part of MEAN, MEVN, and MERN stacks. Express provides plugins, template code, middleware packages, and routing functionality for faster and efficient web development. Additionally, the framework allows third-party integrations of libraries and features to make customization easier.

Developed on the Node.Js platform, Express offers minimalist coding and enables the creation of scalable enterprise applications. It also allows developers to define the routing of web applications and facilitate the integration of template engines like Jade, Vash, and EJS. 

##Market Usage Statistics 

- [A study by BuiltWith](https://trends.builtwith.com/framework/traffic/Top-10k) shows that Express is the 10th most popular framework in the Top 10k sites.

- [SimilarTech](https://www.similartech.com/technologies/express) reports around 193,346 websites are built with Express worldwide, out of which 38,847 are made exclusively in the US. 

- According to a study by [Statistics & Data](https://statisticsanddata.org/data/most-popular-backend-frameworks-2012-2021/), Express ranks 4th among the top 5 backend frameworks for 2021.

##Popular Apps Built With Express


- **Twitter** moved to Node.js Express in 2017 to speed up its mobile web app Twitter Lite.
- **Uber** utilized Express to develop their base web server, Bedrock, and optimize the middleware to provide security, internationalization, and other integrations for its infrastructure. 
- **Accuweather** leveraged Express to build APIs for integration into other apps
- **IMDB** also applied Express features to create APIs for developers to integrate them into their apps.

##Advantages of Express

**1. Lesser Development Time:**

In a competitive market, when organizations want to put their ideas at work faster than others, Express seems to be the ideal solution. Due to the Javascript base, you can easily use Express with other front-end frameworks, reducing the need for efforts to overcome the heterogeneity of the technologies. 

Apart from that, if you choose frontend technologies like React and Express, the time needed for full-stack development reduces significantly. React libraries offer read-made components for your frontend, and minimalistic coding required for Express combine to provide faster time-to-market. This is just one possibility, while Express for full-stack development has endless possibilities with its support for MERN, MEAN, and MEVN.

**2. Effective Error Handling**

Express offers features like content negotiations, routing for multiple request handling, flash negotiations, app-level views, and dynamic views. Apart from such features, it can handle multiple user requests without errors. This reduces the need for extensive debugging tools and offers enhanced error handling,

Express enables error handling through middleware. It allows you to handle errors by separating concerns. These errors are not handled in your business logic but are bubbled on error handles that separate the concerns and decide on user requests.

**3. Handling I/O Requests**

Express is based on Node.Js, which makes it ideal for handling I/O requests. Node.Js can handle multiple concurrencies and I/O requests, which are inherently passed on to Express. I/O operations deal with your system communicating to stuff that is outside of your application, specifically HTTP requests, disk reads, and database interactions. 

There are two types of I/O operations in Node-"blocking" and "non-blocking.” Identifying them helps in the effective handling of the I/O operations. For example, blocking I/O operations means that the next operations are blocked until the current one runs and will remain in the queue. At the same time, in non-blocking I/O, the requests are not queued but processed concurrently through the event loop. 

**4. Unopinionated Framework**

Frameworks are opinionated or unopinionated; the difference lies in the execution. Any framework that offers more flexibility and freedom will be unopinionated. At the same time, opinionated ones do not have much flexibility in terms of their core utilities. 

Due to the Javascript core, Express is an unopinionated framework that allows you to leverage its tools and features flexibly as per your project needs without being too restrictive. 

**5. Easy Installation**

Installing Express is easy through Node Package Manager. The first step is to install NPM on your system and then just run this command- npm install express-generator -g. Once you do, that global package for Express is ready for use. You can run all your commands related to Express right from the generator. 

##How Express Ensures Scalability For Enterprise Applications?

Express enables you to handle errors, multiple user requests and rapidly develop complex features. For an enterprise looking to create scalable applications, the backend should handle various user requests and minimize disruptions of business operations. Express offers reliable tools and features for backend development that enables enterprises to develop high-performance applications. Apart from handling several user requests, Express also offers rapid development with its minimalistic code structure. So, enterprises can scale faster and have lower time-to-market. 

##How can Enterprises Leverage Express Develop High-Performance Apps? 

Enterprises can rely on Express to build faster applications. A simple ‘Hello, World’ [benchmark performance](https://www.simform.com/node-js-vs-express/) shows that the framework can handle 11,202 requests per second. PayPal is one of the most popular fintechs around the world. When they wanted to build a high-performance enterprise application, one app built on Java and Express was tested. The results indicated that apps built with Express could handle double requests per second than Java applications. 

##Conclusion 

Express has all it takes to create scalable, flexible, and reliable enterprise applications. However, the decision to going with the frameworks depends on your business needs. In my years of experience with different enterprise projects over the years, Express can be an ideal choice for you if:

- You want to scale up your app and handle multiple user requests on the app
- You want to build a real-time application that leverages the non-blocking Express servers.
- You want to build a website where millions of users share and export images similar to Unsplash.
- You want to create an app like GoDaddy for registering domains and offering web hosting services.
- You want to develop a web app like Coursera that provides open online courses.