NestJS is a framework for creating scalable, efficient server-side applications and APIs with Node.js. It uses JavaScript with TypeScript support and is currently probably the only well-structured framework available with full TypeScript support. With 1.5 million weekly downloads (July 2022), NestJS is the fastest growing Node.js framework. Especially when you consider that in July of 2021 this number was (only) 350K weekly downloads (you can check the current weekly downloads here).
NestJS
Often a lot of attention is paid to what the end user sees, but great user experience includes a lot more than just looks. We like to use NestJS to make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes.
What is NestJS?
New challenges call for new solutions
Partly because of the popularity of Node.js, JavaScript has been the web's programming language of choice for years, for both front and back-end applications. Due to its huge range of possibilities, it improves the productivity of developers and enables the development of interactive software.
This has led to wonderful projects such as React, Vue and Angular. But in recent years, Node.js has been declining in popularity. This is mainly due to the architectural challenges that arise when you're talking about scaling or adding features. The better alternative turns out to be NestJS. Nest's architecture makes it relatively easy to create highly testable, scalable, loosely coupled, and easy-to-maintain applications.
The pros and cons of freedom
Without getting way too technical, there are roughly two types of frameworks: the kind of framework that gives you a lot of freedom to do whatever you can think of as a developer or the kind where you have to adhere to all kinds of rules. At first it may sound like developers want as much freedom as possible in creating and developing software, but this freedom often comes with a price tag. For example, it is essential that a developer makes the right choices; when picking out the right tools, technologies and the way the codebase is structured. The fewer rules a framework requires, the greater the risk of an unstructured mess. This can especially cause problems if a project is bigger and several different developers are working on it. NestJS is a so-called 'highly opinionated framework'. This means that developers have to adhere to all kinds of rules. Certain code is written in specific places, according to a clear structure, using specific tools. These rules ensure that anyone familiar with Nest can join a project relatively easily, without having to read extensively about the tools that are used or the organization of the codebase. That makes it relatively easy to put multiple developers on one project and thus increase the production speed. In addition, it also makes it easier to maintain a Nest project.
Advantages
- The scalability of NestJS applications makes it an ideal choice for developing large enterprise web applications;
- The combination of NestJS with frontend frameworks such as React, Angular and Vue is ideal for high traffic e-commerce websites;
- The documentation of NestJS is very extensive, which makes it possible to solve specific challenges.
Disadvantages
- NestJS is very interesting for fast, large, scalable projects. However, when it comes to small applications with few requirements, Nest can unnecessarily delay the launch speed of an application.
