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Why I Still Love Node.js After All These Years

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engineeringjavascript

I've written production software in a lot of languages. C# for healthcare integration engines. Golang for high-performance microservices. PHP for web platforms. Java for enterprise systems. Each has its strengths.

But for the majority of the systems I build today — API services, data processing pipelines, prototypes — I reach for Node.js. After years of production experience, here's why.

The Event Loop Is Actually Great

Node's single-threaded event loop gets criticized by people who've never built I/O-heavy systems with it. For CPU-bound work, yes, Node has limitations. But for the type of work most backend services actually do — accepting HTTP requests, querying databases, publishing messages, calling external APIs — the event loop model is excellent.

Most backend work is waiting. Waiting for a database response. Waiting for an API call to return. Waiting for a file to be read. Node's non-blocking I/O means your server handles thousands of concurrent connections without the memory overhead of a thread-per-connection model.

In our financial processing systems, Node.js services handle tens of thousands of transactions per day with modest hardware. The event loop isn't a limitation — it's a feature.

TypeScript Changed Everything

I wouldn't use plain JavaScript for any serious backend work today. TypeScript changes the equation entirely.

Strong typing catches an entire category of bugs at compile time. Interface definitions serve as documentation. IDE support with TypeScript is extraordinary — autocomplete, refactoring, inline error checking.

When I mentor engineers on our Node.js/TypeScript stack, I emphasize: TypeScript isn't optional. It's the price of admission. The productivity gains from type safety alone justify any additional complexity.

NestJS for Structure

One valid criticism of Node.js is that it doesn't impose structure. Express gives you a blank canvas, which means every team creates a different architecture, and half of them are unmaintainable.

NestJS solved this for us. It provides:

  • Dependency injection that makes testing straightforward
  • Module system that enforces boundaries between features
  • Decorators for clean, declarative routing and validation
  • Built-in support for microservices patterns, WebSockets, and message queues

When I architect new Node.js services, NestJS is the default choice. It gives you Rails-like productivity with TypeScript type safety.

The Full-Stack Advantage

Here's the pragmatic argument: when your frontend is React/Next.js and your backend is Node.js/NestJS, your entire team works in one language. Engineers can move between frontend and backend. Shared libraries are trivial. Knowledge transfers naturally.

For a team my size, that flexibility is incredibly valuable. I don't need "frontend engineers" and "backend engineers" — I need engineers who can work wherever the most important problem is.

Where I Don't Use Node

I'm not a zealot. There are cases where Node isn't the right choice:

  • CPU-intensive processing. Heavy computation, image processing, or ML workloads. Golang or Rust are better here.
  • Ultra-low latency. When you need microsecond-level response times, the event loop's overhead matters. Go or C++ are better choices.
  • Massive concurrency with shared state. Go's goroutines and channels are genuinely better for this pattern.

But for the vast majority of backend services — APIs, data pipelines, message consumers, web applications — Node.js with TypeScript is productive, performant, and maintainable. After all these years, that's why I keep coming back.