Nodejs vs Golang: Which is better for writing a Back-end API Development?

“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” – Martin Fowler

There are many factors that define the quality of an app, such as its ability to perform well and scale smoothly as well as the maintainability of code and overall system security. All of this depends directly on the quality of the web application’s backend. That’s why it’s important to choose the right tool for your project.

When it comes to choosing a tech stack for backend development, you have a plethora of options: Ruby, Node.js, Go, Python, PHP, etc. In this article, we’ll pay close attention to Go and Node.js – these two technologies have been considered the most promising backend technologies recently. Node.js, a JavaScript runtime environment, was named the most widely used development tool in 2018, while Go, a programming language developed by Google, has shown rapid growth in popularity in recent years.

What is Nodejs?

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside a web browser. Node.js lets developers use JavaScript to write command-line tools and for server-side scripting—running scripts server-side to produce dynamic web page content before the page is sent to the user's web browser. Consequently, Node.js represents a "JavaScript everywhere" paradigm, unifying web application development around a single programming language, rather than different languages for server- and client-side scripts.

What is Golang?

Go is a statically typed, compiled programming language designed at Google by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. Go is syntactically similar to C, but with memory safety, garbage collection, structural typing, and CSP-style concurrency. The language is often referred to as "Golang" because of its domain name, golang.org, but the proper name is Go.

Nodejs vs Golang:

• Performance: When compared to Node JS, Golang is a better option for raw performance and computation. It is a fast, lightweight platform as it is based on characteristics of C and C++. On the other hand, unlike Golang, Node JS is unable to offer the raw performance of CPU or memory-bound tasks. Simply put, Node JS can perform equally high or horrible, depending on the nature of your app.
• Concurrency: Concurrency is a strong side of Go as it is best suited for large software projects which require thousands of requests to be handled simultaneously. Go uses coroutines (called Goroutines) and a lightweight thread communication mechanism which allows developers to run their functions concurrently. While users can run their functions simultaneously using Go, this is sadly not the case with Node JS. Node JS is single-threaded and makes use of the event-callback mechanism, hence, everything has to be done in a linear order and concurrency cannot be achieved.
• Error Handling: When talking about who will win in the Golang versus Node.js battle in terms of Error Handling, both the platforms deliver optimal solutions. While the Node.js goes with the convention ‘try…catch’ error technique, in which errors are caught just the moment they occur, Go requires explicit error handling when the program code is flowing in a uniform manner.

Which one is best?

Having done a good comparison of Node JS vs Golang, it is overwhelming to declare one as a winner, as both have their strengths and weaknesses. From a performance point of view, Golang is thriving, and Node.JS moves with simplicity, development tools, and a wealth of advanced development tools. However, when it comes to NodeJS vs Golang, your choice will depend only on the project.