5 Major Companies That Use Node.js and Why

Node.js has become very popular over the last 5 year. It is so well liked that many major businesses now use it.

What is Node.js

Before we get into the the companies that use Node.js and why, let’s talk about what it is.

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript runtime environment that runs on the V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser. It’s a JavaScript framework that allows developers to test and debug their code in a virtual domain.

The framework is accessible in two ways:

1. Developers can edit the Node.js source code.
2. Node.js is available to virtually any developer no matter their preferred operating system.

Node.js was developed in 2009 by Ryan Dahl. With Node.js, JavaScript developers use server-side scripting to manifest dynamic web pages. The advantage of this scripting technique is that clients do not need to deal with slow loading times and high CPU usage.

Advantages of Node.js

Using Javascript for writing both the frontend and backend is the base of the advantages of using Node.js. Here are some of its best attributes:

1. Easy To Learn: If you know JavaScript, you will have a good start with Node.js. You do need to know backend development principles, but the knowledge of the programming language will make things a lot simpler.
2. Community-Driven: Node.js is an open-source project, this encourages support and contribution aimed at the improvement and adoption of the platform. This is the mission of its Foundation intended for continuous development and enhancement of Node.js. Node package manager (NPM) the official package ecosystem for Node.js is the largest and fastest-growing software registry in the world.
3. Robust: Using Node.js allows organizing full-stack JavaScript development ensuring the speed and performance of the application.
4. Scalability. Node.js allows for building applications that can easily grow with your business. It can handle several concurrent connections. With Node.js you also get load balancing, which is the process of distributing tasks competently amongst resources.
5. Fast: Projects built using Node.js come to market at a quicker rate. Node.js is lightweight and easy, which reduces the time spent in development. In general, websites that use Node.js tend to be faster.

Companies That Use Node.js

Now that we know what Node.js is and what its advantages are, let’s discuss 5 companies that use Node.js and why:

1. Netflix

Netflix is the biggest video streaming service company In the world. Netflix has 207 million paying subscribers to date.

The user interface (UI) of Netflix was built using Node.js. The technology has proved itself so beneficial and effective that Nertflix has already planned to use it for building other layers of their tech stack.

The Netflix team decided to embrace Node.js in their software to make the application modular, lightweight, and fast. As a result, the application’s startup time is now reduced by 70%.

2. NASA

NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency of the US. Node.js helps NASA keep astronauts safer during their space expeditions.

Node.js saves lives!

NASA adopted Node.js technology after an unfortunate incident occurred in space. They realized that their data was scattered on multiple locations and because of this one of their astronauts nearly lost his life.

NASA decided to move everything in the cloud and also developed their own end-to-end data system to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future. As a result, NASA now has 1 database for everything and their Data Access Time is also reduced by 300 percent!

3. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional social network platform where employers connect with job seekers around the globe. They supports over 20 languages, have over 310 million active monthly users and a total of 756 million members to date.

LinkedIn adopted Node.js technology for empowering the server-side of their mobile applications. As a result, LinkedIn’s new node-based app is 20x faster and their number of servers are also reduced from 30 to 3.

4. eBay

eBay is an e-commerce company that offers business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer internet sales services. To date, eBay is available in 180 countries and has 185 million active users across the world.

According to Principal Web Engineer of eBay, Senthil Padmanabhan, eBay adopted Node.js for two main reasons:

1. To make their product as real-time as possible such as maintaining live connections with the server.
2. To orchestrate a lot of eBay-specific services to handle I/O bound operations in a better way.

eBay is now experiencing many benefits of using Node.js including better speed, performance, transparency, scalability, and control over their product.

5 . PayPal

PayPal is the largest internet payment platform. It offers services like online money transfer and acts as an electronic alternative to traditional payment methods like money orders & checks. PayPal supports 25 currencies and has 361 million active users.

PayPal adopted Node.js for building the consumer-side of their web application. Node.js helped them unify their developers into a team and helped to write both the server and the browser applications in JavaScript.

The new PayPal app was built 2x faster, with 40% fewer files and 33% of less code compared to their previous Java-based application.

As you can see, Node.js is big part of many of the major products we use on a daily basis. I hope this blog will inspire other developers to start learning and using this popular open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript runtime environment!