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  1. Stackups
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  4. Microframeworks
  5. ExpressJS vs Fastify

ExpressJS vs Fastify

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

ExpressJS
ExpressJS
Stacks35.1K
Followers24.0K
Votes1.6K
Fastify
Fastify
Stacks504
Followers523
Votes95
GitHub Stars34.9K
Forks2.5K

ExpressJS vs Fastify: What are the differences?

Key Differences between ExpressJS and Fastify

ExpressJS and Fastify are both popular web application frameworks used for building server-side applications in Node.js. However, there are several key differences between these two frameworks.

1. Performance: Fastify is known for its exceptional performance and low overhead due to its streamlined architecture and optimized code. It can handle a significantly higher number of requests per second compared to ExpressJS, making it a preferred choice for high-performance applications.

2. Routing and Middleware: While both frameworks support routing and middleware, Fastify provides a more advanced and concise routing system. Fastify uses a tree-based routing system that offers better performance and increased flexibility in handling routes. ExpressJS, on the other hand, uses a simpler route matching mechanism.

3. Plugin System: Fastify has a robust and extensible plugin system that allows developers to easily add functionalities to their applications. This modular approach enables better code organization and promotes reusability. ExpressJS, although it has support for middleware, doesn't have a dedicated plugin system like Fastify.

4. Error Handling: Fastify provides a built-in error handling mechanism that allows developers to handle and propagate errors in a more structured way. It provides a unified error handling interface, making it easier to manage errors throughout the application. In ExpressJS, error handling is more manual and less structured.

5. Request and Response Validation: Fastify comes with built-in request validation capabilities, making it easier for developers to validate incoming data and ensure the accuracy and consistency of the request payload. ExpressJS, on the other hand, requires the use of additional middleware or external libraries for request validation.

6. Ecosystem and Community: ExpressJS has a long-standing presence in the Node.js ecosystem and a large community of developers contributing to its growth. It has a vast library of middleware and plugins available, making it easier to find solutions for common use cases. Although Fastify is gaining popularity, it currently has a smaller ecosystem and community compared to ExpressJS.

In summary, Fastify offers better performance, a more advanced routing system, a dedicated plugin system, improved error handling, built-in request validation, and a growing ecosystem. ExpressJS, on the other hand, has a larger community and a well-established presence in the Node.js ecosystem.

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Advice on ExpressJS, Fastify

Tony
Tony

Oct 21, 2020

Review

I personally like using a wholly JS stack, with TypeORM + MySql/Postgres over MongoDb + Mongoose because TypeOrm's Typescript support is much stronger. After developing large projects with Typescript, there is no going back to regular javascript (typings help catch a LOT of errors / maintains data structure !)

Sticking with a javascript stack will allow you to share certain aspects of your application between front and backend. For example: one particularly common feature is to validate API call data and form entry data. Both of these are the same data shape typically (aside from pagination, metadata, etc), and can benefit from a single schema for validation. I use Yup to define this schema, then in the front and back end I can utilize this definition instead of rewriting the same logic in two different languages.

Same goes for certain utility functions such as data structure typings, decryption, encryption, sanitizing inputs, formatting of data, and other utilities. No point of writing these in two languages when both frontend and backend will use them. It will also help reduce developer work load, due to less tests / code to work with.

The only thing you must ensure in your import chain the frontend never imports any secret variables or sensitive logic used by the backend, as that will get bundled into your application. All shared imports should be individual modules

If you want to go one step further, next.js is basically create react app with server side rendering (SSR). This would allow you to skip the annoying step of configuring separate backend and frontend build tools. Might be worth exploring depending on your skill level.

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

ExpressJS
ExpressJS
Fastify
Fastify

Express is a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework, providing a robust set of features for building single and multi-page, and hybrid web applications.

Fastify is a web framework highly focused on speed and low overhead. It is inspired from Hapi and Express and as far as we know, it is one of the fastest web frameworks in town. Use Fastify can increase your throughput up to 100%.

Robust routing;HTTP helpers (redirection, caching, etc);View system supporting 14+ template engines;Content negotiation;Focus on high performance;Executable for generating applications quickly;High test coverage
100% asynchronous: all the core is implemented with asynchronous code, in this way not even a millisecond is wasted.;Highly performant: as far as we know, Fastify is one of the fastest web frameworks in town, depending on the code complexity we can serve up to 20000 request per second.;Extendible: Fastify is fully extensible via its hooks, plugins and decorators.;Schema based: even if it is not mandatory we recommend to use JSON Schema to validate your routes and serialize your outputs, internally Fastify compiles the schema in an highly performant function.;Logging: logs are extremely important but are costly; we chose the best logger to almost remove this cost, Pino!;Developer friendly: the framework is built to be very expressive and help the developer in his daily use, without sacrificing performance and security.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
34.9K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
2.5K
Stacks
35.1K
Stacks
504
Followers
24.0K
Followers
523
Votes
1.6K
Votes
95
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 381
    Simple
  • 336
    Node.js
  • 244
    Javascript
  • 193
    High performance
  • 152
    Robust routing
Cons
  • 27
    Not python
  • 17
    Overrated
  • 14
    No multithreading
  • 9
    Javascript
  • 5
    Not fast
Pros
  • 21
    Performance
  • 13
    Easy to use
  • 12
    Lightweight
  • 9
    Middleware
  • 9
    Open source
Cons
  • 1
    Small community
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
Node.js
Node.js

What are some alternatives to ExpressJS, Fastify?

Django REST framework

Django REST framework

It is a powerful and flexible toolkit that makes it easy to build Web APIs.

Sails.js

Sails.js

Sails is designed to mimic the MVC pattern of frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the requirements of modern apps: data-driven APIs with scalable, service-oriented architecture.

Sinatra

Sinatra

Sinatra is a DSL for quickly creating web applications in Ruby with minimal effort.

Lumen

Lumen

Laravel Lumen is a stunningly fast PHP micro-framework for building web applications with expressive, elegant syntax. We believe development must be an enjoyable, creative experience to be truly fulfilling. Lumen attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as routing, database abstraction, queueing, and caching.

Slim

Slim

Slim is easy to use for both beginners and professionals. Slim favors cleanliness over terseness and common cases over edge cases. Its interface is simple, intuitive, and extensively documented — both online and in the code itself.

Falcon

Falcon

Falcon is a minimalist WSGI library for building speedy web APIs and app backends. We like to think of Falcon as the Dieter Rams of web frameworks.

hapi

hapi

hapi is a simple to use configuration-centric framework with built-in support for input validation, caching, authentication, and other essential facilities for building web applications and services.

TypeORM

TypeORM

It supports both Active Record and Data Mapper patterns, unlike all other JavaScript ORMs currently in existence, which means you can write high quality, loosely coupled, scalable, maintainable applications the most productive way.

FeathersJS

FeathersJS

Feathers is a real-time, micro-service web framework for NodeJS that gives you control over your data via RESTful resources, sockets and flexible plug-ins.

Flask

Flask

Flask is intended for getting started very quickly and was developed with best intentions in mind.

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