Companies That Use Node.js for Backend: How Do Big Players Benefit from It?

Node.js is a JavaScript server environment that runs code outside a browser. The technology is a perfect fit for many websites like streaming, games, time trackers, social media applications, etc. It provides a scalable and fast solution for real-time applications.

Being written in JavaScript, the most popular programming language globally, it opens up the door to many businesses. It is no wonder that it has become a highly trending technology that many companies have embraced, including some of the most prominent players like Netflix and PayPal. What companies use Node.js technology, and how do they benefit from it? Find the answer in this blog post.

Is Node.js Really Changing the Market?

According to Stack Overflow, Node.js is the absolute leader in the world of technology with 50.4%. So, what makes it so popular?

According to the latest Node.js report, this technology has a significant impact on business: it provides a 68% increase in developer productivity, a 48% increase in application performance, and a 13% increase in customer satisfaction. Moreover, these numbers seem to grow over the years:

On top of that, the Node.js report mentions that four out of five backend and full-stack developers adopt Node.js frameworks. Why do developers choose to work with Node.js?

First, this JavaScript environment is easy to work with, and it enables the execution of the code on the server-side. Secondly, it allows high scalability as well as quicker development cycles. Finally, it is the go-to technology with a thriving open-source community. Learn more about the advantages of Node.js.

The Top 10 Well Known Companies Using Node.js for the Backend

Based on the long list of Node.js usage advantages, it is easy to believe that among the biggest companies that used Node.js are NASA, Uber, and Twitter. Who uses Node.js, why did they decide to move to Node.js, and how has it worked out for them?

Netflix

Netflix is the largest provider of streaming content and video-on-demand with 93 million users worldwide. Its path to current success started back in 2015 when Java – the backend technology Netflix used – could not handle such a rapidly growing user base. The backend development could not catch up with the frontend, which caused a higher load time. The customized UI design was unachievable, which led to poor customer experience. Finally, Java took too much time to build, and as a result, the development and deployment processes were inefficiently slow.

The benefits Netflix got:

• Since the adoption of Node.js technology, startup time has drastically decreased by 70%. Instead of taking up ten seconds to load the Netflix interface, it only takes one second now;
• Node.js made it easier to integrate microservices and break a huge block of information into a detailed interface;
• The transition from the backend to the frontend has significantly accelerated due to Node.js being a JavaScript-based environment.

NASA

NASA is one of the most well-known enterprises in the world. NASA has decided to make a transition to Node.js after an accident, which almost led to a fatal outcome. The accident was caused by a long access time due to the inefficient storage of data across many locations. NASA’s developers found it important to move data into a cloud database to shorten the access time. Additionally, most of NASA’s applications were built on JavaScript.

The benefits for NASA:

• The access time has increased by 300%, allowing users to reach the information in seconds, not hours;
• NASA has successfully moved legacy databases to the cloud and provided access to them via APIs;
• Node.js has shortened the process of working with databases from 28 steps to only seven, which made scientific research significantly easier.

Trello

Trello is a tool for project management, which is used across industries and countries. A platform like this requires instant updates in real-time without latency, which is why Trello is one of the companies that use Node.js for its server-side. Trello needs to juggle several real-time connections on the server to ensure that updates come smoothly and on time.

Trello’s main advantages:

• Node.js provided an extremely lightweight Single Page Application;
• Thanks to Node.js, Trello can handle updates with zero latency;
• Node.js architecture enabled to cut expenses of development and prototyping.

PayPal Node.js transition

With over 200 million active accounts, PayPal is a worldwide leader in the industry of online payments and transfers. In 2013, they stumbled upon some difficulties caused by using Java, which didn’t mix well with frontend development. Java provided long development times as well as poor performance, so PayPal has become one of the companies using Node.js.

The benefits PayPal acquired:

• A smaller team of developers built a Node.js based application in a shorter amount of time;
• Response time has reduced, leading to a 35% decrease in loading time;
• The number of user requests per second has doubled since the adoption of Node.js technology.

LinkedIn

Another company on the list of the websites using Node.js is LinkedIn — the world’s biggest social media platform built for business and employment networking. Its popularity continues to grow, with 467 million users from more than 200 countries. After shifting from Ruby on Rails to Node.js, they’ve created an application that runs ten times faster than its old version. The decision has been made due to the synchronicity of the previous Ruby App, which led to the long loading times, especially whenever there was a traffic increase.

The benefits LinkedIn obtained:

• The entire LinkedIn architecture has been built on JavaScript, which made the handling of client-server interactions simpler;
• The number of servers has been cut from thirty to three, which doubled the traffic capacity.

Uber Node.js experience

Uber is another ever-growing platform that expands the number of users every six months operating in 68 countries worldwide. Due to the always-increasing number of connections, Uber had to create a real-time architecture. Additionally, the company ran advanced analytics on the data stored on the platform, requiring the services to perform smoothly. That is why Uber is now one of the companies that use Node.js in production.

The benefits Uber received:

• Node.js enabled Uber to process an immense amount of data and numerous user requests much quicker;
• Thanks to Node.js technology, Uber is capable of processing 14 million rides every day;
• Uber increased its connectivity and reduced management overheads by building over 600 stateless endpoints.

The shift to Node.js — Twitter case

More than 80% of the account holders on Twitter access it via a smartphone, which led to a decision to build Twitter Lite — an application with minimum functionality that can run even with a poor internet connection. On top of that, the website version of Twitter wasn’t optimized for a slow internet connection. This led Twitter to become one of the companies that use Node.js.

Twitter’s benefits:

• Twitter Lite doesn’t take too much space — 1% to 3% — which saves mobile device users a lot of storage space;
• The application runs even on 3G and 2G connections;
• The maintenance costs of Twitter Lite are significantly lower than of Twitter Desktop.

eBay

Another business among the examples of companies using Node.js is eBay. With 183 million users, eBay is the biggest marketplace that offers C2C and B2C online sales services. eBay’s app used to run on Java, which showed long startup times and poor performance. As a platform with huge traffic, eBay needed a technology that would speed up the development to catch up with frontend iterations.

eBay’s benefits:

• eBay created microservices using Node.js that run in real-time and don’t overload the infrastructure.
• Node.js provided scalability, speed, and transparency.

Groupon

Groupon is the largest marketplace for coupons, deals, and discounts with 40 million customers. When Groupon achieved the mark of 200 million downloads in 2019, it faced scalability issues. That is when the company turned to Node.js and held the largest production deployments of Node.js in the world.

Groupon’s benefits:

• High scalability has been ensured by Node.js deployment to enable 3,400 backend services to run smoothly;
• The loading speed has doubled;
• Node.js has simplified and accelerated the migration to a different platform.

Medium

Medium is a world-renowned online publishing platform that uses Node.js with over 85 million users. Having reached 7.5 million posts in 2016, Medium felt the need for big data management without overloading the server. The company also had to keep up with the text editors’ ever-growing performance standards for post publishing.

Benefits for Medium:

• Even with large-sized images and content, the page loads in 2.7 seconds.
• Node.js has improved user experience as well as accelerated the deployment time.

Our Experience

TechMagic is a Node.js app development company that specializes in application development and backend development services. With years of experience and a multitude of projects, TechMagic is an expert in backend development as well as AWS infrastructure. We built applications both from scratch and by adding our specialists to startup development teams, using several full-stack approaches, including Node.js.

We love JavaScript, and that is why we have embraced Node.js to build all kinds of applications of any level of complexity. Additionally, we are experts in serverless architecture, which is the best ingredient for Node.js-based platforms.

Elements.cloud is a company that helps other businesses to visualize and organize business processes. The biggest challenge for Elements.cloud has been implementing customizable process mapping and visualization tools amid the automated scalability of the backend infrastructure. TechMagic helped Elements.cloud to build a highly scalable and cost-efficient application using Node.js and AWS infrastructure.

Conclusion

If you are still not convinced that Node.js is a technology of the future, here are additional big players who use Node.js as a part of their operations: Google, Yahoo, Mozilla, Microsoft, and many more. Due to its unlimited advantages, many companies are embracing Node.js technology. One of these days, this trending technology will conquer the market and become the go-to framework for every company, from startups to the biggest players. If you have a product in mind, consider using Node.js for its backend. We’d be pleased to consult you on the technology’s peculiarities and offer our services to make your idea come true.