Django vs Node.js – What’s the Difference? (Pros and Cons). As a developer or anyone who has an interest in building websites and web apps, it’s normal to question what is the best technologies you could choose to learn for your next project or your new job. Besides, when developing a program, it’s crucial to have a great backend knowledge. Why? as it is vital to have an interactive user interface.
Even though, Node.js and Django are quite distinct tools, companies frequently discuss them together when deciding which technology to utilize to create web applications. Certainly, both Django and Node.js are open source. What it means, is that anybody can use them without purchasing a license, and they both offer fantastic user interfaces.
Equally, since Django and Node.js are great in their ways, this article will give you an insight into each of their pros, cons and their differences. That way you can decide which you should choose to learn next!
Let’s find out Django vs Node.js – What’s the Difference? (Pros and Cons).
What is Django?
First of all Django is a Python based web framework that follows the Model View Template model. A variation of the Model View Controller model. Moreover, Django uses a fast development method, where it takes applications from concept to completion in no time.
Pros of Django
Versatility and Scalability:
- One of the key reasons Django is so well liked among tech companies is that it’s designed to build and scale up projects and project management very fast. Even the busiest websites may benefit from Django’s assistance in scaling up to handle increased traffic. Why? because it avoids many of the manual processes that require constructing anything.
Security:
- Because Django takes security seriously, it assists developers in avoiding various security errors such as SQL injection. To handle user accounts and passwords securely, it offers a user authentication mechanism. For instance, the hashed password is kept in cookies rather than a password in the Django framework. Thanks to that it prevents hackers from readily retrieving it.
Rapid development:
- Here the Django’s primary design was to ensure rapid development. Due to Django’s MVT Architecture implementation, the development speed is quick.
Admin interface:
- Moreover Django provides an admin interface to develop applications without having to create a backend admin interface. This way you don’t have to build your own admin interface when you only have to handle your data using basic CRUD operations.
Python based:
- Major design principle that led to the creation of Python is that it is incredibly simple to read. Above all, Django is built on the Python programming language. In return, all of Python’s advantages, including simplicity, increased productivity and support for external libraries, apply to Django as well.
Documentation:
- Interestingly, Django’s finest feature is it’s vibrant community. Equally, the community is always trying to make the framework more dependable and is user friendly. Even the documentation is comprehensive.
REST:
- REST is a framework for creating web APIs. Accordingly, Django has the extra bonus of being powerful enough to develop an API in a few lines of code. This means, your data is not confined to any standard and may return numerous data formats as well as manage many sorts of calls.
DevOps compatible:
- DevOps with Django is very beneficial. At least, it allows for faster problem solving and improves operational support. Concurrently, it employs a continuous delivery mechanism to boost system efficiency.
Cons of Django
- Monolithic: Programmers must become familiar with a certain collection of files and pre-set variables in Django before starting any project. The framework has a specific method for carrying out activities. However, there is guidance and documentation to follow, and there is a variety of support resources and communities available.
- Only good for bigger projects: Evidently, Django has a lot of code to support all its features. For low end websites that can function even with very little bandwidth, it requires server processing and time, which presents certain challenges.
- Cannot handle multiple requests: Importantly here, Django does not allow separate processes to handle numerous requests at once, in contrast to many contemporary web frameworks.
Now with Django vs Node.js – What’s the Difference? (Pros and Cons) is time to learn about node.js
What is Node.js?
Second tool of this article is Node.js. Primarily a runtime environment based on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. Given that JavaScript is one of the most widely used languages today, NodeJS has benefited from this popularity by rising to become one of the most often used back end frameworks. All things considered , Node.js offers a variety of significant features that draw developers.
A lot of developers love Node.js for enabling them to create programs that effectively handle online traffic. At the same time, have excellent libraries and a vibrant community, and is being very helpful when developing APIs. The graph below show sustained interest over time with usability of Node.Js.
Pros of Node.Js
Easy to learn:
- Many individuals pick up Node.js for web application development since it’s so simple to adapt. Learning Node.js requires less time and effort. As a result, Node.js appears to be more robust than ever with a total of 368,985,988 downloads and over 750 new contributors, according to the Node by numbers report for 2018.
Scalability:
- Because it is event driven and asynchronous, Node.js is easily scalable. More to add, Node.js is perfect for real time and high throughput applications. Eventually Node.js’s major benefit is what has helped it become so well liked in the world of web development today. Finally an important note is that Node.js is a wonderful option for microservices architecture as well.
Flexibility:
- In most frameworks or run time environments, a change in the code affects the entirety of the application. However, in Node, a change affects only that node. That’s helpful not only for your original build but also for continuous upkeep. Best of all, when JSON and Node.js are combined, information may be quickly sent between the client and server sides.
High performance:
- When compared to other server side programming languages, Node.js is known for providing great performance. Therefore, it is a desirable choice for many web developers. Few reasons as to why include handling of asynchronous requests and non-blocking input/output and the V8 engine.
Caching:
- You can save information locally on a user’s PC and then rapidly access it when needed. Caching using Node.js can also assist to increase speed and performance. When you cache files and data, the server does not need to make a call to the database each time they are required.
Cross-platform development:
- Well, the Node.js web development allows you to simply package apps as executable files for a variety of operating systems without any trouble or code recompilation.
Node package manager:
- Basically the Node.js package manager is essential to the development of Node.js. Also functions as a marketplace for open source JavaScript utilities. Developer productivity increases because you are not dependent on third party tools to install any libraries or frameworks when you need them.
Communication:
- Simply put, Node has a consistent connection with users and servers, so there is no lag between what a user requests and the server executing the request. Whilst other run time environments parse with every letter, Node would have completed the request in its entirety. Besides, it supports Websockets, one of the most prominent real time communication options in the market. With Node.js features like this one, you can ensure that your users are always on the same page as you.
Cons of Node.Js
- Call back hell: Here with Node.js, it relies significantly on call backs because of its asynchronous nature. As a result the so called callback hell can negatively affect the code quality. Prime cause of callback hell is keeping a lot of queued jobs with their call backs running in the background.
- Low performance on CPU intensive tasks: As it has been noted, Node.js can process one request at a time since it operates on a single thread. The current implementations have a tendency to queue up additional requests, which on average lowers performance.
- Unstable APIs: There are numerous tools in the npm registry that are either of poor quality or are not fully documented/tested.
Now we have come to the the main part of Django vs Node.js – What’s the Difference? (Pros and Cons).
The Differences between Django and Node.js
Development time
You can develop Python applications more quickly than JavaScript ones. Conversely, Django’s main emphasis is giving developers the tools they need to efficiently construct programs with the least amount of code.
We can rely on npm packages to handle certain common problems if we are going to use Node.js. However, don’t trust all npm packages blindly. Some of them are not well maintained by developers while some of them contain even errors.
Security
Because of the built in mechanism such as clickjacking prevention, that guards against security breaches, Django is more secure.
However, Node.js requires manual operations systems to address security threats.
Scalability
Scalability of Django has new features added and improved without having to worry about how to incorporate them into the app. The framework can manage high traffic and large volumes of data well, enabling all apps to be scalable right away.
Contrary with Node.js is renowned for being able to manage even one million simultaneous connections with its single threaded event loop paradigm.
Popularity
JavaScript is the most popular programming language with a usage percentage of 67.9%. Whereas 43.51% of professional developers use Python.
A whopping 46.31% of developers employed Node.js but only 13.59% use Django.
Community
Community that uses Django is tiny but comparatively active community. On the other hand, Node.js has a thriving community of knowledgeable users that help with upgrades and modifications.
Complexity
Complexity comparison of Django is quite complex, because a developer has to stick with particular routes to work with any problems they come across. However, Node is flexible to work with.
Architecture
Architecture of Django uses the MVT model. While building the app, developers can work on many areas of the same project. Furthermore, modifications made to a specific component do not affect the entire program.
Oppositely, NodeJS, uses an event driven model. This model maintains requests on an operating system and aids in the development of high end applications. Because of this approach, the Node.js application is resilient. Furthermore, Node.js’s non-blocking I/O and asynchronous request handling design allows you to manage numerous requests at the same time.
Learning curve
Learning Django means you need to have a thorough understanding of the MTV model. Although there are several fantastic Django tutorials, most of them are not relative to recent years’ updates.
When learning NodeJS, you need a good idea of synchronous programming and the native techniques and architecture of Node. There are several Node.js tutorials accessible on the web, but not many teach the fundamentals.
Thank you for reading Django vs Node.js – What’s the Difference? (Pros and Cons). We shall conclude.
Django vs Node.js – What’s the Difference? Conclusion
We can use both Django and Node.js to build web apps. It depends on the developer’s needs for a project whether the framework should be Node.js or Django. For instance, Django is the best choice for complicated programs with multiple functionality, scalable MVP development, and strong security. For building APIs, services that need a lot of bandwidth, and microservices, use Node.js.
