Node.js is an open-source JavaScript server environment that runs the JavaScript code on the server-side.
Node.js is ideal for fast, lightweight, real-time web applications such as audio/video streaming, browser games, chats, collaboration tools social media, time trackers, and much more. For this reason, many companies decide to use Node.js in production.
In this article, we will list the world-renowned companies that use Node.js.
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Netflix
Netflix is the world’s supplier of flowing broadcast and television. Netflix is the world’s top supplier of flowing broadcast and television. The company decided to embrace fast and easy Node.js.
Earlier, Netflix was using Java on the back end and JavaScript on the front end, which required the developers to be proficient with languages.
As a result, they had to do double work for error handling, activity tracking, and debugging.
Netflix is now among companies using Node.js due to the following reasons:
- A common language both for the server-side and browser side.
- High performance – now the page loads within seconds.
- A great number of modules and their open source nature.
- An easy way of writing, debugging, and engineering the API.
Trello
Trello is a project management tool trusted by 25 million people worldwide. It needs to rely on event-driven technology that can handle many open connections at a time. Trello is among companies that use Node.js for its server-side and as a prototyping tool to build a single-page web application.
As written in the Node.js company blog,
The server side was built with Node.js. Node.js was helpful when the company was templating a tool for a one-page application. By the time the company had finished the prototype, they decided to stick with Node.js also at the server side of the application.
PayPal
The world’s most popular online payment system is actually one of the first companies that use Node.js in production.
Just like Netflix, they were initially using Java on the back end and JavaScript on the front end. To test the technology, PayPal first tried to develop a prototype with two developer teams that were using Node.js and Java, accordingly. The company assigned the Java development to a team of 5 developers and Node development to a team of 2 developers.
As a result, the Node team quickly caught up with the Java team, despite being smaller in size.
Check the whole list of Node.js dev teams available on YouTeam:
183 DEV TEAMS SPECIALIZING IN NODE.JS
This professional networking platform is also among websites using Node.js.
The server side of the LinkedIn mobile app was built by using Node.js. They actually moved the back end of the mobile application from Ruby on Rails to React.js. Two key reasons for this switch were efficient performance and scalability.
The Ruby on Rails app was a synchronous app that the clients used to make several calls for a single page. All of the calls occurred sequentially, with each thread handling a single request.
Node.js allowed LinkedIn developers to move to an asynchronous event system where the client made a single request per page.
The result is as follows:
- The company now uses 4 servers instead of 15.
- The traffic capacity has doubled.
- On the client side, the app works 2 to 10 times faster.
Walmart
The retail giant has also benefited from the asynchronous mechanism of Node.js in its mobile app. Walmart can now deliver some very sophisticated features to mobile users and thus save them lots of time by customizing the content based on device type and browser capabilities.
Besides, many e-commerce systems at Walmart are powered by Node.js, serving millions of users without the downtimes at peak days such as the Black Friday.
Developers at Walmart can now create new APIs for Walmart apps and deploy them within hours, thus significantly reducing the release times.
Uber
Uber’s matching system creates an enormous amount of supply notifications for drivers and demand requests for passengers. Besides, a ride request helps to choose the driver through the matchmaking process.
The drivers are stored in a geospatial database that is continuously updated by each active driver on the network as they move around the city.
Uber needed a system to be reliable both to passengers and drivers and named the 3 key reasons for choosing Node.js:
- ability to process big amounts of data quickly and reliably,
- convenient error analysis and quick code deployment,
- ongoing improvement of the technology because of the open source community.
As a result, Uber now can process over 2 million remote procedure calls (RPCs) per second.
By the way, if you’re planning to build an Uber like app, make sure you think your idea through.
Groupon
Around 2012, Groupon felt the need for replacing their current technology stack, so they started to look for a more suitable software platform. Here is why the company chose Node.js:
- It is quite easy to learn.
- It is highly scalable, allowing not only to unify the development language but also improve the performance.
- Node.js developers can easily reuse the previously written code elements.
Groupon engineers rebuilt the entire web layer with Node. Now the company is using Node.js for the back-end services, for client apps, and as an API integration layer.
Ebay
The e-commerce giant chose Node.js as part of JavaScript tech stack. The deciding factor was the need to make the eBay application as real-time as possible.
With about 138 million active users, eBay app on Node.js shows the ability to maintain live connections to servers. Having started with one project, now eBay is transitioning to the full-featured stack on Node.js.
Additionally, eBay’s platform team built some incredible tools to successfully deploy Node applications to production. It also allows the application team members to respond to any possible issues in real-time.
NASA
NASA also belongs to companies that use Node.js. But unlike other companies, they use Node to keep the lives of its astronauts safe during space expeditions.
After the life of one of the astronauts was put under threat due to some unreliable data hosted in several locations, NASA engineers decided to take measures and develop their own end-to-end data system. They moved all of the data related to the EVA spacesuits to a unified cloud database.
Here’s what they got as a result:
- The access timelines were reduced by 300%;
- The number of procedural steps was decreased from 28 to 7;
- Now NASA has a single database for everything;
- The astronauts’ lives are now safe.
Mozilla
Mozilla Firefox, one of the world’s most popular Internet browsers, was using Node.js for:
- Express, a web framework that is written in JavaScript and hosted within the Node runtime environment.
- Mozilla Persona, a cross-platform sign-in technology based on the BrowserID protocol (closed in 2016).
According to Mark Mayo, principal engineer at Mozilla who was working on Mozilla Persona, the company chose Node because of two key reasons: memory footprint and cryptography.
His team encountered several challenges while implementing Node, but in the end, they got everything in a single JavaScript repository, without any other languages or dependencies.
Yahoo
At first, developers at Yahoo were using Node for minor purposes, such as file uploads. But then the company decided to make a bigger investment.
Their main challenge was being able to maintain the same code base both on the client and server sides, and Node.js turned out to bea perfect solution.
This resulted in the release of co*cktails, a project with the purpose to eliminate the multi-language scenarios and thus simplify the lives of developers. The project uses JavaScript and Node to run a single code base on the client and server-side, with a Node.js hosted environment.
In April 2017, Twitter released Twitter Lite, a mobile app with minimum functionality that can work with slow Internet connections. The app minimizes the data usage, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1 MB on any device.
The Twitter team used Node.js to build, test, and deliver this application. Before Node.js, the company had a different technology on the back end and spent lots of time-solving the operational issues.
Node.js allowed the engineers to have the same technology and thus be more productive, spending more time on actually building the app than resolving the problems.
183 DEV TEAMS SPECIALIZING IN NODE.JS
GoDaddy
The Node.js examples mentioned above are the top of the iceberg of all Node.js companies. There are many players which use Node.js, for example, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, or Github.
Now that you know who uses Node.js, you are all set to making a switch. If your team is also planning to join Node.js companies, we can help. Browse the list of Node.js offshore software development teams on YouTeam and choose the best team for your project needs.
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