Node.js is a platform created on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime. It is used to create quick and scalable network applications. Node.js Packages helps you to employs an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model.
These Features Of Node.js makes it efficient, lightweight, and completely apt for data-intensive real-time applications that run on various devices.
It is used for various workflows and helps in achieving many purposes like front-end, back-end, APIs, and robotics among others.
It is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment used to write JavaScript code that runs directly in a computer process and not in a web browser.
Node.js packages play a major role in contributing to the improvement of your development workflow and work model.
We will take you through the top 40 Node.js packages that you can use in your development process.
Analyzing 40 Node.js Best Packages
Express
This framework is one of the quickest ways to use a programming language to help with your requirements. Premium Node.js Development Company use it.
All common programming languages have alike structures in the way things are created. Express is a widely used framework to create and publish applications, and APIs in a short span of time.
This framework has a minimal structure and with the use of Express Generator, any Node.js developer can promptly launch a functional application.
Besides defining how your app will function, you can also combine it with other Node JS Packages to create a better output.
Async.js
Async.js eliminates render-blocking JavaScript, and increases the performance of web pages.
Render-blocking means until the JavaScript completely loads up in the page, the JavaScript content placed in ‘above the fold’ portion of a page will not load. This can negatively impact your website’s performance.
Async.js helps you load JavaScript content next to everything else. It can even load the JavaScript content faster sometimes. Apart from Node.js, it works with browsers as well.
This gives you the liberty to use it in any project that has Node.js or not. You get control over more than twenty functions with the help of Async.js.
Request – Simplified HTTP Client
Request is a trustworthy HTTP Client library. It is necessary to have a good way to make HTTP calls as apps regularly use external HTTP calls for many reasons, such as to get data or to use data right from an external source.
When you use Request, the process of making HTTP calls becomes a safe, simple, and dependable method to access external content on the web.
The content can be in any form. Request works in a proper manner with authentication methods as well.
Browserify
Browserify lets you develop an organised, easy to manage, and systematic client-side codebase. With Browserify, you can develop solid components that quickly assign dependencies based on their usage in different situations.
Node.js projects generally have many Node JS Packages, libraries, and scripts. Browserify assists you in organising and giving a proper structure to everything.
Sometimes JavaScript libraries can be tough to manage. You need to continuously check between templates to inspect which particular scripts are being used by which libraries and widgets.
When you deep delve into the project, the number of scripts increases, and it becomes difficult to keep a tab on libraries and widgets.
Many times the websites created with JavaScript behave like apps depending on heavy libraries that work alone.
Grunt
With a task runner, you can automate processes like compiling tasks, minifications, testing, and code linting among others. This way you have lesser tasks to take care of and more time to code.
Grunt helps you in automating many tasks with the help of a wide range of plugins. If you want more features from a certain plugin, you can also create a plugin according to your requirements.
Grunt gives you the flexibility to publish Grunt-specific plugins through NPM.
PM2
Top Developers prefer Node.js as it is the framework used for large enterprise applications and infrastructure. It also offers process management, a necessity during development.
PM2 gives you two great features; offers process management for production applications, and acts like a load-balancer to assist in performance tweaks.
When you use PM2, you get tools to reload your apps without going through any downtime which means they stay online for an unlimited time.
Socket.IO
If you are planning to create a real-time communication app operating with real-time streams of content, you can always choose Socket.
The content can come from the data you are using or through an API that comes from an external source, either way, Socket can help you.
Some popular examples of this approach include Twitter bot that collates the latest tweets and Facebook bot for consuming news. Socket can help you with different mixes of APIs that use real-time data.
Commander.js
Ruby-based Commander.js helps you in developing hassle-free command-line interfaces for your project. It is one of the most unique Node JS Packages that you will ever see.!
Mocha
Mocha is a JavaScript framework that runs on Node.js and the browser. It makes asynchronous testing easy. It runs serially with adaptable and accurate reporting and also maps uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.
Testing is essential as it shows the application’s performance and how the code is operating. With the performance report, you can find any particular errors, and also find a solution for the bugs or problems.
Bower
For a fully functional modern website, external libraries, tools, frameworks, and other JavaScript related utilities are vital. Managing these utilities can be demanding and time-consuming.
To control such situations, Bower can be a great package manager. It is capable of managing components of JavaScript, CSS, or HTML.
Bower can handle fonts and visual content as well. It safely categorizes all the Node.js Package you are using, constantly checks them for any possible risks, and helps them stay updated.
Underscore
Developers prefer using Underscore as it helps with a quick development workflow via the usage of programming helpers. It offers a wide range of more than 100 helpers.
You can choose whichever helper fits your requirements the best. It helps in writing code for HTML documents and you do not have to worry about how the complicated functions operate.
UglifyJS2
UglifyJS2 automatically shortens and minifies your JavaScript files. For high performance of a web page, it is essential to save all possible spaces and load-times, no matter how small they are.
When you trim and the performance of your webpage increases even by a millisecond, it can have a great impact on your overall business performance.
UglifyJS2 exactly helps you in doing this by enabling you to make your webpage’s performance better. It is also adaptable and convenient.
Cheerio
Cheerio helps you use jQuery within the server-side of things. It is quick, adaptable, and is the lean implementation of core jQuery, which is specifically designed to be used for the server.
Passport
Passport is a special authentication module for Node.js developers. Its main objective is to assist with authentication requests.
Passport does this with the help of third-party plugins that behave as authentication methods, also known as strategies.
You can authenticate a request and provide it to Passport. It will connect you and let you manage what happens after an authentication call succeeds or fails.
You can hire Node.js developer so by using a passport they will easily integrate with more than one type of authentication into the application.
You can delve into the strategies, and you will find innumerable authentication methods that you can opt for. You can choose from internal authentication methods to external ones like Google, Facebook, and others.
Nodemailer
Within your apps, sending an email is an important and highly sensitive task. Your end-users should have access to a safe way of doing email transactions.
Nodemailer is a secure framework that handles email management in your Node.js applications.
Its documentation is thorough and has a plethora of examples that explain the usage of Nodemailer with SMTP.
Hapi
Hapi is a server-framework that provides you immense flexibility while creating apps and services. When using Hapi, you can have a to-the-point approach and focus on writing the application logic.
For an excellent performance, Hapi is preferred by many popular tech companies. You can use it to create powerful APIs and handle extensive projects that need expansion. It offers a great design that enables you to align your project together.
React
React is one of the most popular UI frameworks of JavaScript. A stunningly fast web experience is what you get when you combine React with Node.js.
Developed by Facebook, React enables you to create interfaces quickly and concentrates only on the important parts of the UI.
It is one of the most opted frameworks by developers; it does not interfere with external technologies and can work on top of any technology stack that you are presently using.
Karma
Karma can be your go-to tool when it comes to efficient testing. To maintain the stability and performance of applications, testing is essential. It should be done with the right tools to get the best results.
Karma can test your code in the browser and also cross-browser. Karma can be used for testing in many scenarios, such as during local development, every file save, and server integration. It works perfectly in the terminal as well.
Pug
Pug, earlier known as Jade, is a node templating engine and has been created particularly for Node. With a templating engine, you can save yourself from writing complicated HTML and JS code.
With Pug, you will receive many benefits and recognisable patterns. It will increase your efficiency, work output, and save time in writing long codes.
Node MySQL
MySQL is the world’s most famous database server. The Node MySQL Example library is a native implementation of the MySQL Protocol for the Node.js Javascript client.
LESS
LESS is a popular and trustworthy CSS pre-processor that boosts your CSS workflow and front-end development experience altogether.
For CSS to behave more like a programming language and not only a scripting environment, pre-processors transform them. LESS is dependable, free, and many app developers use this Node.js Package on a regular basis.
MongoDB Node.js Driver
MongoDB is recognised among database managers just like MySQL.
If you are planning to use a full version of MongoDB in your Node.js projects, then this library will give you a required driver.
This feature will allow you to use MongoDB with its benefits within your Node projects.
JSHint
JSHint is a linting tool that inspects your program written in JavaScript and identifies mistakes and potential bugs.
When you use a linting tool to scan for regular errors and bugs in your code, you can utilize the time in coding and improving it.
JSHint will help you find the possible errors and will also provide the solutions that can better the code you are writing.
When your code base becomes huge, the chances of mistakes increase, which means a lot of time needs to be spent in debugging.
With this static code analysis tool, you can easily spot the issues in the code which could be a syntax error, an implicit type conversion leading to a bug, or a leaking variable or something different.
This will help you improve your code and save your time in debugging.
Morgan
This is one of the important libraries for Node developers and is downloaded a million times in a month. It is an HTTP request logger.
Morgan stores HTTP requests and gives you a succinct insight into how your app is being used and provides information about potential issues or errors.
It is the safest HTTP logger and is highly preferred in the Node.js community.
Webpack
With Webpack, you can use multiple modules in your project. It collates all your modules in different JS, CSS, and HTML files and you do not have to spend time working on the locations and performance of these modules.
It can divide, pack up, and assign code according to your preferences. This feature provides you a clean and organised workspace for the browser.
Angular
This is a brilliant framework that you can use in fast app creation. Angular.js helps developers quickly create client-side web apps that are similar to modern browsers.
With it, you can easily create rich-and-modern web applications. It offers you flexibility and increases your productivity.
Restify
When you aim to create a RESTful API, Restify library can help you with the necessary tools that you need to execute tasks.
In any Node.js application, APIs are important and they make the real-time actually real. Restify is a helpful and decent library that you need when creating REST services for the web.
Marked
Markdown is a minified and sophisticated version of HTML. It transforms text to HTML with the usage of particular markdown syntaxes and tags.
The difference between HTML and Markdown is that HTML aims at making things engaging for the web whereas Markdown focuses on the text.
It handles the text’s presentation, helps online editors to create beautiful text with fewer hassles, and with learnings of HTML.
GraphicsMagick
To operate visual content on the web, you can go for two widely approved tools: GraphicsMagick and ImageMagick.
You can use both GraphicsMagick and ImageMagick in your Node.js projects to optimize visual content.
GraphicsMagick’s library offers easy to understand documentation that helps you with insights, tips, and tricks. So, it is a useful Node JS Package.
JSDom
To execute WHATWG DOM and HTML standards in your Node.js architecture, you can use JSDOM. It is a javascript based headless browser that can be used to create a testing environment.
Prop-types
Prop-types is a small library that makes React components type-safe by letting you add types to your props. You can go through React’s official documentation to understand this concept.
This library functions at runtime. For better performance, you can process it out at the production stage.
Moment
Moment.js is one of the most secure and maintained time manipulation libraries. It is highly preferred to solve problems of formatting, parsing, converting, and working with different forms of time.
In its recent v2 release, Moment.js was rewritten Node JS Package to support the recent ES6 syntax. This has made the performance of browsers better along with enhancing their modularity.
Lodash
Lodash is a popular and highly used JavaScript utility library. Many tools, projects, and libraries depend on it. It is quick, rich in features, and modular.
Chalk
Chalk is a very easy library that styles your terminal strings. Its API is uncomplicated and works easily with all features of JavaScript that it offers natively.
Debug
Debug is a straightforward debugging utility inspired by Node.js. It lets you collate your logs for particular modules and toggle the debug output easily. This Node.js package also includes some styling and tagging.
Body-Parser
It is a Node.js body parsing middleware. In a middleware, it parses arriving request bodies before your handlers that are present under the req.body property.
Body-parser offers you these parsers: JSON body parser, Raw body parser, Text body parser, and URL-encoded form body parser.
Babel-Core
It is a well-known JavaScript transpiler. Its real name is 6to5 as initially it used to convert ES6 code to ES5 code.
Now, it has more capabilities and can convert ES6 to ES5, JSX to JavaScript, and Flow to JavaScript.
JOI
JOI is a module that you can use for data validation processes in your application. It can validate any type of data.
It could be easy scalar data types like strings and numbers or complicated values having many levels of objects and arrays.
This module helps in making applications more secure and dependable in checking related inputs.
Winston
Winston is a multi-transport async logging library for Node.js. A transport is basically a storage device for your logs.
Supporting numerous transports, it is a straightforward and universal logging library. For every occurrence in a Winston logger, there can be many transports configured at different levels.
Gulp
With Gulp, you can automate and strengthen your Node.js application’s workflow.
You can increase your productivity by automating prolonged tasks in your development workflow. This module is like Grunt.
Gulp offers a minimal API surface and is easy to understand and implement.
This Node JS Package offers major integrations that you can use with PHP, .NET, Node.js, and Java among other platforms.
Importance of NPM
NPM is the JavaScript node package manager. It places modules at the right place for Node to easily find them and handle dependency disputes smartly.
NPM is the default method to manage packages in the Node.js runtime environment. It supports many use cases like publish, discover, install, and develop node programs.
When JavaScript developers use NPM, it becomes easy for them to share the code that they have designed to resolve particular problems. Other developers get the facility to reuse that code in their application.
It has three specific components:
- Website
- Command Line Interface (CLI) known as the NPM client
- Registry (it is the directory of information about packages)
The registry consists of more than 1 million Node.js Packages making it the world’s largest software registry. It has roughly 3 billion downloads per week.
Some of these packages are very beneficial for developers while most of them have lengthy codes. NPM brings simplicity to your work.
These packages make your life easier by helping with the code. You can simply install many NPM packages, copy a few snippets, and be ready with a decent demo for JIT presentation.
That being said, you should not completely rely on NPM for your mainline code-base. NPM is managed by a company called npm Inc.
You will not find many substitutes for NPM but there is no guarantee what happens to these packages you use or develop in the future. You simply have to trust these packages and use them.
Conclusion
This list will help you identify the best Node.js package for your development. A Node.js Package which is widely recognized might not help you with your requirements.
You should choose the one that helps your cause. It should enhance your workflow, productivity, flexibility, safety, and deliver the output you are aiming for.
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How many node packages are there?
There are 350,000 node packages. NPM registry contains the most populated package registry.This is a fact that it is considered to be the largest package registry in the world.
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How Do I Install Packages Required To Run A Node.js App?
For installing the packages required to run a node.js app, you can take assistance from the NPM (Node.js Package Manager).
For downloading and installing the package, run the command C:UsersYour Name>npm install [Package Name].
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What Are Some Useful Packages To Use With Node.js NPM?
There are many useful packages that one uses with Node.js NPM. Some of the most popular ones are as listed below:
- Express
- Async.js
- Request - Simplified HTTP Client
- Browserify
- Grunt
- PM2
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How To Update Node.js Packages?
For updating the Node.js packages, follow the command:
- npm install -g npm-check-updates (For Checking Update)
- ncu -u (For Upgrading The Versions)
- npm install (For Installing The Update)
