ExpressJS vs Restify

Overview

ExpressJS

Stacks35.1K

Followers24.0K

Votes1.6K

Restify

Stacks86

Followers129

Votes1

ExpressJS vs Restify: What are the differences?

ExpressJS and Restify are both popular JavaScript frameworks used for building web applications and RESTful APIs. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Routing and Middleware Handling: ExpressJS provides a flexible routing system that allows developers to define routes with various HTTP methods and handle them using middleware functions. Restify, on the other hand, focuses primarily on building RESTful APIs and provides a simpler routing mechanism specifically designed for handling API routes.
Performance and Scalability: Restify is known for its optimized performance and scalability, making it more suitable for high-traffic API applications. ExpressJS, while still performant, may not handle high loads as efficiently as Restify due to its more extensible design and focus on flexibility.
Module Dependencies: ExpressJS has a larger ecosystem of modules and plugins available, providing developers with a wide range of functionality options. Restify has a more focused set of modules specifically tailored for building APIs, which can be beneficial for developers who prioritize simplicity and efficiency.
Error Handling: Restify has built-in error handling mechanisms that are specifically designed for handling API-related errors. ExpressJS, on the other hand, allows developers to define their own error handling middleware functions, giving them more control over the error handling process.
Request and Response Objects: Restify provides a separate request and response object for each route handler, allowing developers to easily access and manipulate API-specific data. ExpressJS, on the other hand, provides a single request and response object for each route handler, which may require additional parsing and abstraction for API-specific functionality.
Community and Support: ExpressJS has a larger and more established community compared to Restify. This translates to a wider range of resources, tutorials, and community support available for developers using ExpressJS. Restify, while still having an active community, may have fewer resources and support options in comparison.

In summary, ExpressJS provides a more flexible and extensible framework for building web applications, while Restify offers a more specialized and optimized framework specifically tailored for building RESTful APIs.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

ExpressJS	Restify
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.	A Node.js web service framework optimized for building semantically correct RESTful web services ready for production use at scale. it optimizes for introspection and performance.
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	-
Statistics
Stacks 35.1K	Stacks 86
Followers 24.0K	Followers 129
Votes 1.6K	Votes 1
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 1 Semantically REST correctness
Integrations
Node.js	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to ExpressJS, Restify?

Django REST framework

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

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

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 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.

Fastify

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%.

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 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

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

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.

Related Comparisons

ExpressJS vs Restify: What are the differences?

ExpressJS and Restify are both popular JavaScript frameworks used for building web applications and RESTful APIs. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Routing and Middleware Handling: ExpressJS provides a flexible routing system that allows developers to define routes with various HTTP methods and handle them using middleware functions. Restify, on the other hand, focuses primarily on building RESTful APIs and provides a simpler routing mechanism specifically designed for handling API routes.
Performance and Scalability: Restify is known for its optimized performance and scalability, making it more suitable for high-traffic API applications. ExpressJS, while still performant, may not handle high loads as efficiently as Restify due to its more extensible design and focus on flexibility.
Module Dependencies: ExpressJS has a larger ecosystem of modules and plugins available, providing developers with a wide range of functionality options. Restify has a more focused set of modules specifically tailored for building APIs, which can be beneficial for developers who prioritize simplicity and efficiency.
Error Handling: Restify has built-in error handling mechanisms that are specifically designed for handling API-related errors. ExpressJS, on the other hand, allows developers to define their own error handling middleware functions, giving them more control over the error handling process.
Request and Response Objects: Restify provides a separate request and response object for each route handler, allowing developers to easily access and manipulate API-specific data. ExpressJS, on the other hand, provides a single request and response object for each route handler, which may require additional parsing and abstraction for API-specific functionality.
Community and Support: ExpressJS has a larger and more established community compared to Restify. This translates to a wider range of resources, tutorials, and community support available for developers using ExpressJS. Restify, while still having an active community, may have fewer resources and support options in comparison.

ExpressJS vs Restify

Overview