Node is a leader in the asynchronous framework market. The platform now supports many startups and businesses earning hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Thus, it establishes itself as a platform that can sustain a huge load while retaining smooth performance. Node.js was perhaps the biggest revelation of modern server engineering that we saw. Node isn’t stopping any time soon; it’s the exact opposite by its looks. The project continues to push out frequent updates and maintains old releases to support older platforms. A new release secures some loopholes in OpenSSL and adds more support for languages like C and C++.
Starting with Node.js is a fairly easy process; the guidelines are outlined and thousands of projects are sitting on GitHub, waiting for you to inspect and analyze their architecture. Node.js works great on all platforms, even on Windows 10, for those who are interested. That makes it a great platform for learning front-end and back-end development together. Let’s not forget that Node has the most populated package manager of any framework or language known to man. Thus, building a website takes only a couple of minutes, thanks to the plethora of modules and libraries available through the package manager. Even technical websites/platforms, such as analytics dashboards, can take up only a few hours of your time to have a fully functional version up.
More About Node…
APIs are another thing Node is so well known about because it promises near real-time performance. Node is dependent on APIs to provide smooth data transitions from one place to the other. Tutorials for creating APIs for Node already exist so do tutorials on how to design an API for Node. It always helps to learn more about the command line and how Node works with it. Of course, we are just helping spread the word about some neat Node resources. We did write a little while ago about the most popular Node frameworks that developers recommend this year.
Let’s keep the doors of learning open while switching our focus from learning to exploring the best NPM packages and the best Node.js libraries to kickstart your development workflow. The libraries/packages/modules you will see us will range from complex/simple frameworks to libraries that can be used to do specific server-side and client-side tasks, we will also mention a couple of task managers and tools of a similar range. There are many choices to pick from, so we tried to include only what matters to developers who want to get started with Node.
Express
All common programming languages share similar structures in the way things are built. One of the fastest ways to get a programming language to serve your needs is through a framework. Express is the leading Node.js framework for quickly creating and publishing applications, and APIs. The framework’s minimal structure allows any Node.js developer to quickly launch a functional application using Express Generator. Express gives you a solid outline to build your apps on top of. Combine it with any of the other packages we will discuss, and you will quickly realize just how amazing this framework truly is.
Cloudinary
If you need a solution for your web application’s images, you better not miss taking a peek at the practical Cloudinary. It is a full-blown cloud service with heaps of features that will do you well. You name it from uploading visual content to resizing images, cropping feature. Of course, all this without any technically advanced software. Cloudinary is friendly enough for both beginners and pros to get the most out of it.
Thanks to the API, you can flawlessly integrate Cloudinary in any project or application without breaking a sweat. Keep in mind you can even create a free account and try Cloudinary right away to see how impactful and effective it is. The official tool website also sports all the additional information about the use of the tool, like setup, configuration, embedding, and more.
Nodist
If you are searching for a complete Node.js and NPM version manager for Windows, Nodist is the way. It fully supports CMD, Powershell, Git bash and Cygwin for your convenience. If you are new to using a manager for Windows, read the installation process with installer and chocolatey, so you execute it flawlessly. Once you read through the entire documentation, you will also gain all the necessary information regarding usage, debugging, testing, building and activating Nodist. You can also get in touch with the author if you fancy sharing ideas or even facing any issues along the way.
Async.js
Asynchronous has rebuilt the way JavaScript content interacts with your web pages. This allows you to increase performance by getting rid of render-blocking JavaScript. Render blocking means that any JavaScript content that resides in the “above the fold” parts of a page will not be loaded until JavaScript itself has been finished loading in the page. This can have certain effects on the performance of your website. But, with the help of libraries such as Async.js, you can open the door to load JavaScript content alongside everything else, sometimes even faster. The library was initially meant to be used with Node.js, but these days it will work with browsers. too. You can inject it in any project, whether it uses Node.js or not. There are more than twenty functions that this library gives you control over.
Browserify
Working with JavaScript libraries can prove to be a difficult process. You constantly have to go back and forth between templates to analyze which libraries and widgets are using the specific scripts. And eventually, these scripts begin to add up as you start to lose track of what is working for what. As JavaScript progresses, the notion that we are just building websites is gone. In many ways, websites built with JS act more like apps — versatile projects that depend on heavy libraries that work independently.
There are many uses for Browserify, but the most important one is that it allows us to create the kind of client-side codebase that’s organized, well-structured, and easy to navigate. Anyone can use Browserify to create solid components that quickly allocate dependencies according to their use at any particular situation. Node.js projects tend to stack up on packages, libraries and scripts, and Browserify helps structure everything neatly together.
Grunt
Task runners can be avoided for as long as you like, but learning one will completely change your programming experience from day one. With a task runner, you can easily allow yourself to have less tasks to care of for a particular project, and instead automate the process of doing minifications, compile tasks, testing, code linting, and so forth. Grunt provides a ton of plugins that you can use to automate even the most mundane tasks, without any extra effort from your side. And if you feel that there isn’t a plugin that does what you need, well… just go ahead and create your own, Grunt lets you publish Grunt-specific plugins through NPM.
PM2
Node.js is known for being the framework to use for scaling large applications and infrastructure. Process management should be an essential priority for any Node.js user. PM2 offers process management for production applications and a load-balancer to help with any possible performance tweaks. With PM2, your applications stay online indefinitely, giving you the tools to reload apps without having to experience any downtime. Is it a surprise that hundreds of thousands of Node.js users consider this an essential tool?
Socket.IO
Socket lets you build truly real-time communication apps that require real-time content streams, whether directly from the data you are working with or through an API that comes from an external source. We have seen some examples of apps: a Twitter bot for collecting the latest tweets, a Facebook bot for watching the news, and other interesting combinations of APIs that work with data in real-time. Just imagine what such communication methods could do for your analytics, truly real-time analytics are still being actively developed even by large companies such as Google Analytics. Still, with Socket — you happen to get early access to all that.
Commander.js
Want to craft an app or a project that requires a command-line interface? Worry no longer, Commander.js (based on Ruby) is a great solution for creating command-line interfaces without any fuss.
Mocha
There is even more asynchronous action in this Node.js package roundup. This time we have Mocha — a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on Node.js and the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases. Testing is important to understand how well the application is performing, locate any particular leaks, and know how to improve these bugs, problems, and irritations that we experience. Testing lets developers better understand how their code performs and learn more skills as they continue down their chosen path.
Bower
In (very) old days, websites didn’t consist of much more than HTML and CSS and JavaScript. Nowadays, websites almost can’t exist without external libraries, tools, frameworks, and other JS-related utilities that make a modern website. Keeping track of all these utilities can turn into a strenuous task, there is so much to control and keep in check… it only makes sense that package managers such as Bower exist. Bower manages your components for you, if they are of JS, CSS, or HTML. (Fonts, and visual content works too!) Bower carefully allocates all the packages that you are using, and then helps you keep the updated, and regularly checked against any potential risks. A simple Bower file can help you maintain an application the size of Fortune 500 companies.
Underscore
Underscore is popular amongst developers who enjoy more rapid development workflow through programming helpers. With more than 100+ helpers to choose from, Underscore bridges the gap between opening a new HTML document and writing code for it, without the need to think how complex functions operate.
Cheerio
Want to use jQuery within the server-side of things? Now you can with Cheerio. Cheerio is a fast, flexible, and lean core jQuery designed specifically for the server.
Passport
Passport is a unique authentication module for Node.js devs. The main goal of Passport is to help with authentication requests, this Passport achieves through the use of third-party plugins that act as authentication methods, otherwise known as strategies. The Passport API is straightforward, you give Passport a request that you need to authenticate, the Passport in turn gives you the hooks that let you control what happens after an authentication call fails, or succeeds. Exploring the Strategies, there are hundreds of authentication methods to choose from, starting from internal ones, all the way up to external ones like Google, Facebook, and others.
Nodemailer
Sending an email is one of the most sensitive things you will do with your apps. Email is a big deal, and having a secure way of doing email transactions is essential to your reputation. They built Nodemailer, a secure framework for doing email management within your Node.js applications. Documentation provides extensive samples on how to get Nodemailer to work with SMTP.
Hapi
Hapi is a server framework that will happily assist you in building apps and services. With Hapi, you can focus on writing the application logic with a very concise approach. Hapi isn’t just another wannabe framework either, leading technology companies today rely on Hapi for stellar performance results. Hapi can also be used to build robust APIs, to handle high-load projects that need to scale, and Hapi delivers the kind of modular design that helps to align your project together. Flexibility is key in development, and Hapi gives you all the flexibility you could ask for.
React
React — the most talked about UI framework of modern JavaScript times. Combining React with Node.js makes for an amazingly fast web application experience. Developed by Facebook, React lets you build fast interfaces that scale and focus only on the important parts of your UI. What makes React so appealing to developers too, is the fact that it can work on top of any technology stack that you are already using, without actually interfering with external technologies.
Karma
Testing, testing and more testing! We need to test our apps to ensure their stability and performance. We also need the right tools for the job. Karma is one such tool that does the job of testing beautifully. The reasons to use Karma are long, some of them include: ability to test your code in the browser, but also cross-browser. You can use Karma to launch test during local development, during server integration, and during every file save you do. It works flawlessly in the terminal, so terminal-lovers — rejoice!
Pug
Although still using old website, Pug is a node templating engine, formerly known as Jade (although still using old website). What is a templating engine? Well, it’s the kind of engine that helps you eliminate the need for writing complex HTML and JS code that could otherwise be shortened down to a more slim, more compact version. That’s what a templating engine is. Pug has been crafted specifically for Node, so you will be getting a lot of benefits and recognizable patterns, all to help you be more productive and efficient while working.
Node MySQL
MySQL, the world’s most recognized database server. Where would the world be if it wasn’t for MySQL and all it has brought about. True, in modern development, many choose to go for more simple database servers, like MongoDB, but to deny the popularity of MySQL, it’s just pure ignorance. The Node MySQL library is a native implementation of the MySQL Protocol for the Node.js JS Client. GitHubbers are starring this one faster than we can blink, get it on the party wagon!
LESS
Pre-processors transform CSS to act more as a programming language, rather than just a scripting environment. LESS is a recognized and reputable CSS pre-processor that significantly improves your CSS workflow, and overall front-end development experience. Many reasons to choose LESS, but most importantly: it’s free, reliable, and hundreds of thousands of developers use it daily.
MongoDB Node.JS Driver
As we mentioned, MySQL is very popular amongst database managers, but so is MongoDB. This library will provide a necessary driver for those who wish to implement a full version of MongoDB within their Node.js projects. This will give you the necessary room to use MongoDB to its full potential within your Node projects.
JSHint
Weeding through code to find and fix bugs is never fun. It can have a huge imprint on your productivity and how you code. This is why linting tools came about. Linting tools help you analyze common bugs and errors in your code without your focused attention. Instead, a linter analyses the code itself. It gives you potential errors and fixes that could drastically improve your writing code.
Any code base eventually becomes huge, and simple mistakes—that would not show themselves when written—can become show stoppers and waste hours of debugging. And this is when static code analysis tools come into play and help developers spot such problems. JSHint scans a program written in JavaScript and reports about commonly made mistakes and potential bugs. The potential problem could be a syntax error, a bug due to implicit type conversion, a leaking variable, etc.
Morgan
With millions of downloads each month, Morgan is one of the top priority libraries for Node devs. Morgan is an HTTP request logger, storing HTTP requests and giving you concise insight into how your app is being used, and where there could be potential errors or other issues that you haven’t yet explored. Easily the most reliable HTTP logger known to the Node.js community.
WebPack
WebPack lets you use dozens of modules in your project without worrying about their locations and overall performance. As the name suggests, it packs all your modules in separate JS, CSS, and HTML files and gives you back an easy workspace for the browser. You can split, bundle and allocate code as you like thanks to WebPack.
Angular
What’s the best framework for rapid app building? Many will argue, but Angular will sit at the top of the decision for many. Angular.js allows its users to build fast client-side web apps that would resemble a modern browser. Angular has a certain vibe to it, it makes the process of building rich-and-modern web applications so easy, yet so flexible, that it leaves you wondering… what were you doing without this framework all this time.
Restify
APIs remain one of the most important parts of any Node.js application, it’s what makes the real-time real. If you want to build a RESTful API, then Restify library will give you the quirks and tools required to perform the task. In more ways than one; Restify is the library you will want to use when building REST services for the web. It’s simply that good.
Marked
Markdown is a minified, more elegant version of HTML. Markdown lets you convert text to HTML using specific markdown syntaxes and tags. While HTML focuses on making everything appealing to the web, Markdown on the other hand wants to put the focus on text, specifically on the way text is presented, and how to best online help editors to output beautiful text, with less trouble and learning of HTML. The Marked Node.js library will implement Markdown in any project, app or website that you’re working on.
GraphicsMagick
GraphicsMagick and ImageMagick are two highly acclaimed tools for manipulating visual content on the web. Now, you have the chance to use both GraphicsMagick and ImageMagick within your Node.js projects to optimize visual content as you go. Easy to navigate documentation offers all the insights, tips and tricks to help you get started with the GraphicsMagick library.
JSDom
JSDOM helps implement the WHATWG DOM and HTML standards within your Node.js architecture. Simple as that.
Best Packages and Libraries for Node.js Projects
What’s best for one is the worst for the other. Or the saying goes… it wasn’t our intention to try and please a specific group of Node.js developers, instead, we chose to go a long way, and explore packages that are heavily sought after, but also heavily useful for a project of any kind.
So many of the libraries we explored, can be used directly together to secure a decent starting base for your next project. Security, flexibility, workflow, productivity, extendability are the keywords that best represent the packages we have explored here. If you happen to be a Node.js developer — we welcome you to leave a comment down below, sharing your insights about Node, and your most favorite Node packages that you feel you cannot live without in your daily Node dev environment. Thanks, and see you at the next Node resource we decide to publish.