Overview

When starting a new project, one of the most difficult decisions a business owner must make is which programming language to use. Node.js Vs Python, which one is better to choose for your project? 

The reason for this challenge is that each new project presents a unique difficulty, and there is no such thing as a master of all trades in the programming industry. Different programming languages have their own set of strengths and drawbacks, making them suited for some but not all scenarios. 

We will compare Node.js Vs Python in this article to see which one is superior in a particular situation.

What is Node.Js?

Before comparing Node.js Vs Python, let us figure out the pros and cons of each of them. As new technologies arise, many of the most popular programming languages become obsolete or lose appeal. Node.js, which was first released in 2009, is not one of them. Over the previous four years, Node.js development has grown in popularity. It will continue to do so, causing companies worldwide to pick it over other available options.

According to Stack Overflow Research, Node.js is widely used for back-end development and is the worldwide leader among frameworks. Many experts believe that whether or not node js is worth learning. However, before you reply, you should be aware that Node js’ popularity is anticipated to increase in 2021.   

If you are wondering what node js is good for, we have got a quick answer for you. The Node.js technology was developed as an alternative for the client/server approach, in which the server only responds to client requests and closes the connection after each answer. Node.js creates a two-way connection between the server and the user’s browser, allowing for minimal latency and great throughput.

Node.js appears to be a major trend that will continue to expand. Moreover, it has a number of clear advantages that make it the finest option for product development. We will discuss them later in the article. 

What is Python?

To tell what is better, Python Vs Node.js, let us analyze Python and its capabilities first. According to the PYPL index, As of February 2021, Python was the most popular programming language based on how often its tutorials were searched on Google, with a 30.06% market share. Python is not a new programming language. While it isn’t as old as some of the other languages, it has existed for far longer than most people believe. It was initially launched in 1991, and though it has evolved much since then, it is still used for the same purposes.

It’s a production-based language suited for enterprise and first-class projects, and it has a long history, which is only one of the reasons why it’s grown so popular in recent years. Its adaptability comes from its ability to be utilized for practically anything.

What makes Python so special? Python is a general-purpose language, sometimes known as a utilitarian language, that is meant to be easy to understand and write. It’s crucial to emphasize that it’s not a difficult language. Traditional syntax was minimized by the designers, making it easier to work with even for non-programmers and developers. 

Node.Js Vs Python: Comparison of technologies, pros, and cons

Wondering what programming language to choose for your project Python Vs Node js? Now let us look at the specificity of their technologies, pros, and cons. 

Node.js

Let us firstly overview some of the benefits that make Node.js a great option for developing your product. Using Node.js, you automatically get all the pros of full-stack development, such as: 

• enhanced developer efficiency and overall productivity;
• reuse and sharing of code;
• large range of free tools;
• high performance; 
• simple knowledge exchange within a team.

As a consequence, your development team is more flexible. Moreover, Node.js has strong corporate support. The Node.js Foundation was founded in 2015 to “enable wider adoption and assist speed Node.js development.” IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, Fidelity, and SAP were among the organization’s original members. As a result, the number of companies using Node.js in business is steadily increasing. PayPal, Medium, Trello, Uber, and Zendesk are among the almost 300 well-known organizations on the list.

Few open source initiatives have ever had such significant support from the world’s most powerful corporations. And this indicates that Node.js has a ton of potential.

One of the most significant drawbacks of Node.js is its lack of consistency. The API for Node.js changes regularly, and the updates are frequently incompatible with previous versions. When this happens, programmers are compelled to update their old code to make it compliant with the new Node.js API version.

Some developers may consider the fact that Node.js is unopinionated to be a disadvantage. With Node.js, you basically have to start from scratch. It might lead to a drop in productivity, slowing down your working process. On the other hand, you won’t have to worry about efficiency if you work with an experienced team of programmers who have created strong internal processes for developing and maintaining code.

Python

Talking about Python, we also can highlight some of the advantages and disadvantages. Here are the main things that make Python stand out among other languages:

• user-friendly environment;
• speed and quality of development;
• clear and concise syntax;
• security and scalability offerings;
• useful toolkit.

Python is ideal for big projects. It is an object-oriented programming language that can handle both structured and functional programming. As a result, Python’s application may be found practically anywhere. Python also leads in terms of scalability, thanks to its extensive library and simplicity of use.

Python is used in the majority of data mining, automation, and big data systems. In addition, it may be used to create web frameworks and online apps, as well as GUI-based desktop applications and business applications.

It’s critical to comprehend the business benefits of Python and the function it plays in product development. Of course, various languages benefit different organizations, but Python plays a crucial part in your company’s product development process when it comes to durability, scalability, and a pleasant user experience.

As with all other languages, Python has some drawbacks. Because of memory usage and performance, it is not suitable for mobile and game development. Python consumes a large amount of memory, and when there are a lot of objects in RAM, memory problems might occur.

Engineers must cope with memory leaks and memory use concerns in large projects. However, by lowering the size of objects and analyzing memory leaks, everything may be corrected if done properly.

Node.Js Vs Python: for small business and Startups

Node.js is perfect for small web application and website development tasks. However, because it lacks explicit coding standards, companies should avoid using this framework for big projects.

On the other hand, Python is well-suited to a wide range of tasks, including web applications, numerical computations, machine learning, and network programming. It is an excellent programming language for a variety of tasks. Python is great for building MVPs and prototypes.

Python backend frameworks like Django, Flask, Pyramids, with their precise coding, make it ideal for large projects also. 

If you’re looking to build a large project, python experts are the way to go. If you own a small business or a startup, though, hiring Node.js web developers is the best option. In both cases, it is better to turn to professionals to achieve the desired result.

Node.Js Vs Python: for medium business

In order to choose Node.js Vs Python for medium business, we recommend that you first decide on your goals. For example, if in the future you want to scale your project and quickly take it to the next level, Python is definitely for you. On the other hand, if you have a classic medium business and do not need complex technologies and algorithms, we recommend choosing Node.js.

Python is most commonly used in the following areas:

• Web development
• Data science
• Scientific Applications
• Business applications
• DevOps, system administration, and automation scripts
• Software testing
• Parsers, scrapers, and crawlers

Python is a simple yet powerful and adaptable programming language that comes with extensive documentation and high-level development tools. It’s the language of choice for Big Data applications, as well as corporate solutions, educational platforms, scientific and healthcare software.

For designing apps like ad services, gaming platforms, or forums, Node.js is the go-to technology. It’s well-suited to projects involving a large number of simultaneous connections or applications requiring high-speed and intensive I/O (input/output), such as productivity platforms (e.g., content management systems), P2P marketplaces, and eCommerce platforms. Node is used in a variety of web applications, including:

• Social and productivity platforms
• Business applications
• Payment systems
• Entertainment platforms

When comparing the performance and use cases of Python and Node.js, we can see that they cater to various purposes. For example, Node.js is used in situations where Python isn’t typically used, such as real-time applications that demand more speed or when you want the same team to work on both front-end and back-end development.

Node.Js Vs Python: for enterprise-level

Comparing Node.js Vs Python while choosing one or another for enterprise, remember that Python is very mathematical and complex. So, for an enterprise solution, it will work better. 

Big companies and corporations that want to develop large-scale projects usually choose Python. Some enterprises still use Node.js for their projects. However, you need to set up Node.js very carefully. In the case of Python, it is much easier. 

Node.Js Vs Python: From the developer side

To help you choose Node.js Vs Python for your project, we have prepared a list of comparisons on several important criteria for each of them.

Architecture

Node.js

Node.js is designed as an event-driven framework that provides asynchronous I / O. A specific process is called as soon as a corresponding event occurs, which means that no process is blocking the thread. The event-driven architecture of Node.js is great for developing chat apps and web games, as we talked about earlier.

Python

Python Vs Node.js is not designed this way. You can use it to create an asynchronous and event-driven application using special tools. Modules like asyncio allow you to write asynchronous code in Python, just as you would in Node.js. But this library is not built into most Python frameworks and it takes some extra effort.

Speed

Node.js

First of all, since JavaScript code in Node.js is interpreted using the V8 engine (in which Google is investing heavily), the performance of Node.js is at a high level. 

Secondly, Node.js executes code outside the web browser, so the app uses resources more efficiently and performs better. It also allows you to use features that cannot be used in a browser, such as TCP sockets. 

Thirdly, the event-driven, non-blocking architecture allows you to handle multiple requests at the same time, which makes your code faster.

Finally, caching is enabled in Node.js, which makes the application faster and more responsive.

Python

Both Python and JavaScript are interpreted languages, and they tend to be slower than compiled languages ​​like Java. 

However, Python Vs Node.js is single-threaded and requests are processed much slower.

Syntax

Node.js

Node.js syntax is very similar to browser JavaScript. Therefore, if developers are familiar with JavaScript, they will have no difficulty with Node.js.

Python

Comparing Node.js vs Python, Python’s syntax is often considered to be its most significant advantage. When writing code in Python, product developers need to write fewer lines of code than they would if they were writing in Node.js. Python syntax is straightforward and free of curly braces.  

This makes the code much easier to read and fix errors. In addition, python code is so readable that customers with some technical background can understand it.

Scalability

Node.js 

Using Node.js, you create a set of microservices and modules, and each of them will interact with a lightweight engine and start their own process. You can easily add an additional microservice and module, which makes the development process flexible.  

In addition, you can easily scale Node.js applications both horizontally and vertically. To scale it horizontally, you add new nodes to the existing system. To scale it vertically, you add additional resources to the existing nodes. 

Finally, from a coding standpoint, you have more options in Node.js Vs Python. For example, you can use either weakly typed JavaScript or strongly typed TypeScript.

Python

In order to scale applications, multithreading is required. But Python does not support multithreading because it uses the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL).

Extensibility

Node.js

Comparing Node.js Vs Python, Node.js can be easily customized, extended and integrated with various tools. It can be extended with built-in APIs for developing HTTP or DNS servers. 

It can be integrated with Babel (a JS compiler) to facilitate front-end development with older Node or browser versions.  

Also, for Node.js, there are many frameworks such as Express, Hapi, Meteor, Koa, Fastify, Nest, Restify and many others.

Python

As we said earlier, Python was released in 1991, and many development tools and frameworks have been created throughout its history. 

For example, Python can be integrated with the popular Sublime Text code editor, which offers additional editing functions and expanding syntax.  

To automate testing, you can use RobotFramework. There are several powerful web development frameworks like Django, Flask, Pyramid, Web2Py, or CherryPy.

Libraries

Node.js

Comparing Node.js Vs Python performance, in Node.js, libraries and packages are managed by the NPM node package manager. It is one of the largest repositories of software libraries. NPM is fast, well documented, and easy to learn.

Python

In python, libraries and packages are installed using Pip. Pip is fast, reliable and easy to use, so it’s easy for developers to learn how to use it as well.

Universality

Node.js

Node.js is mostly used for the backend (server-side).

With Node.js, you can develop web applications and desktop and hybrid mobile applications, as well as cloud and IoT solutions. 

Node.js is also cross-platform, which means that a developer can create one desktop application that will run on Windows, Linux and Mac. This versatility is a great way to keep project costs down as it can all be done by a single development team.

Python

Like Node.js, Python is cross-platform, so a program written on a mac will work fine on Linux. Mac and Linux have Python pre-installed. On Windows, you need to install the Python interpreter. 

Python is excellent for web and desktop development, but it falls short when it comes to mobile computing. Therefore, mobile apps are generally not written in Python. However, in terms of IoT and AI solutions, the popularity of Python is growing rapidly.

Learning curve

Node.js

Node.js is JavaScript-based and can be easily learned by novice developers. Once you have some JavaScript knowledge, mastering Node.js shouldn’t be a problem. 

Installing Node.js is pretty simple, but it introduces some advanced topics. For example, it can be difficult to understand its event architecture at first. Event architecture significantly impacts application performance, but it often takes developers some time to master it. Or one more challenging part is the Node.js backend.

Python

If you don’t know JavaScript and need to choose between Python and Node.js, you should probably start with the first. Python can be easier to learn because its syntax is compact and straightforward. 

Typically, writing a particular function in Python requires fewer lines of code than writing the same function in Node.js. But this is not always the case because the length of your code is highly dependent on your programming style and paradigm. Another plus is that there are no curly braces like in JavaScript.

Node.Js Vs Python : How much does it cost in 2021?

Another important topic that we would like to consider is pricing. How much does a Python backend cost? How much money should you spend on Javascript frontend development? All answers to these questions you will find in the table below. Mainly, prices depend on the geolocation of the agencies or freelance developers who provide the services.

Node.Js

Python

Node.Js Vs Python: Typical Mistakes

As a business owner, you have to take the choice of the programming language for your product seriously. In this article, we looked at two options – Node.js Vs Python. You should choose what is more suitable for your project, but we would like to advise you not to make some mistakes that will help you save time and, of course, money:

• Don’t follow trends too much. Now one language may be popular for some reason, but not tomorrow. Popularity will not affect the performance of your product in any way.
• Don’t pick at random. Learn the specifics of each language, determine if it is right for you and if the team can handle it.
• Lack of consultation with specialists. Here, take the time to consult with people who understand this topic better than you. You can quickly achieve the desired result by asking the advice of professionals. With extensive experience, the Rewisoft team is always ready to help you with your project.

Node.Js Vs Python: Summary

To summarize, we looked at two different programming languages, their strengths and weaknesses, their features and capabilities. 

They both work well, but remember each software project has its unique set of requirements and demands, and you should base your technology selection on these.

A language that works for one project might not work at all for another.