Node.js is a cross-platform runtime environment used for creating server-side applications built on the google chrome V8 engine, making it perfect for creating fast and scalable applications.
TypeScript is a programming language that was developed as a subset of JavaScript to create large-scale applications. It is an object-oriented strongly typed programming language.
There are many criteria by which we can compare both technologies to choose the best for a project. Let’s see them one by one.
Scalability
TypeScript is a strongly typed language, which means there is a restriction on mixing different data types and its value. This lets to developer find bugs at an earlier stage of development, which helps in developing a stable scalable application whereas Node.js uses JavaScript which is a weakly typed language hence it is still a challenge in scalability.
Portability
All devices that support JavaScript, can easily execute TypeScript code as well. TypeScript is platform-independent that can run on any browser directly there is no additional requirement, on the hand for using Node.js needs to step up the development environment according to the operating system in order to execute its programs.
For example, an application that uses just TypeScript can run with a single click on the browser but if you are executing a Node.js application it is required to install its environment, without any additional setup you can’t run a Node.js Application directly on an operating system.
Development Speed
TypeScript is a strongly typed language and forbids many things that can cause an error, when developing a website using TypeScript does not produce many bugs in comparison to the development of a project using Node.js which uses JavaScript which is the weekly type and produced lots of errors. This quality of TypeScript makes it fast to develop an application than Node.js.
Community Support
Node.js has a vast and global active community. On GitHub, a large number of developers are there to help with your Node.js project. Even the new framework launched nowadays is based on Node.js making the overall community increases day by day, on the other hand, TypeScript does not have that big community, it is growing technology and people are understanding it’s important for developing a scalable and secure application. TypeScript will definitely grow and have a big community but at this time Node.js have much bigger community support.
Libraries and Tools Availability
TypScript has tons of libraries to be used for different functionalities but when compared to Node.js, Node.js has millions of libraries that can install using Node Package Manager. NPM is the world’s largest repository of libraries. Almost 10,000 libraries are launched weekly. So in terms of Libraries and Tools Availability, Node.js is definitely better.
Use Cases
TypScript is used for creating a client-side application that has interactive dynamic pages. TypeScript would be suggested for a large-scale client-side application, for small-scale applications JavaScript is still on top. On the other hand, Node.js is best used for creating the server-side, the server that can interact with the operating system, file system, creating and managing database, etc.
Learning Curve
Both technologies used JavaScript, which makes it easy for a JavaScript developer to learn and master them, however, the Typescript is easy for beginners, it has limited methods, keywords, and concepts and it is extremely easy to read and understand, on the other hand, Node.js is a world itself, it is a non-end path containing many build-in modules, millions of libraries, concepts like asynchronous, synchronous, promises, async, await and many more things which are very complex to understand.
Real World Example
Node.js is used by many popular companies like PayPal, Linkedin, GoDaddy, Netflix, etc whereas TypeScript is used by Slack, Walmart, Accenture, Trello, etc.
Conclusion
The choice of which languages to use for a project depends on the functionality required. When large-scale client-side applications need to be developed, TypeScript is definitely considered, when server-side applications and APIs need to be developed, Node.js is preferred. Hope this tutorial helps you differentiate between TypeScript and Node.js.
References
https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/
