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Devesh Chauhan
Devesh Chauhan

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What is the difference between Node.js and React?

These two JavaScript frameworks are both popular, but they’re not quite the same thing. So what’s the difference between them? And how can you use each to your advantage? In this article, we’ll compare Node and React and explain when to use each one in order to create an awesome website or application. Let’s get started!

*Why Node.js was created?
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Node.js was originally created by Ryan Dahl in 2009, with a goal of creating a platform that could enable developers to create real-time applications using JavaScript on both server and client sides. Since Node’s inception, it has been widely used for backend development (most notably for single page applications) because of its lightweight nature and asynchronous processing model as well as for its versatility in handling concurrent operations. Currently, Node has over 170K stars on GitHub!

How Node.js works?
Node.js makes it possible to build server-side applications using JavaScript outside of a browser environment, which is advantageous because browsers don’t support some of the more advanced JavaScript features like asynchronous callbacks and highly dynamic code execution. With Node, an application uses a library called Node Package Manager (npm) to install other packages from its community repository – npm currently hosts over half a million open source packages for use in applications built with Node.

About ReactJS
The library exposes a set of components and APIs that allow you to build applications using a declarative programming paradigm. As such, it enables you to separate your application's logic from its rendering, making it possible to test components in isolation of one another and thus easily reuse them within different contexts, which increases code maintainability while simultaneously reducing complexity by minimizing inter-component dependencies as well as runtime exceptions [source].

Comparison of NodeJS and ReactJS
Node.js vs react: One of these things is not like the other... but which one, you ask? Well, it depends on your needs, really. While they are both Javascript frameworks used for building apps and websites, each have different strengths that lend themselves to specific types of applications – so it’s best to take a look at how they compare before deciding on what framework might be best for your project!

Also Read: Node.js vs Python

Top comments (2)

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halo_3 profile image
Harry Logan

React itself builds upon Node.js. In my opinion there is little point in looking for differences between the two because they are completely different things. Like looking for differences between plastic and a plastic bag.

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jacobgavin profile image
Jacob Gavin

This comparison doesn't really makes any sense since the use case is totally different. React is a frontend library which is used for building single page applications.

JavaScripts was originally designed was to run in browsers and nodejs allows javascript to be ran outside the browser context. Meaning Node enables javascript to be used as a backend language and script language that can do a lot of things like writing/reading content to files at a disk.