What is MERN stack? Web development using MERN STACK.

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With the advancements of technology every day, users are expecting more and more satisfaction from it. Users are getting smarter and hence, there is an ever-growing demand for more enriching and seamless experiences, when it comes to web and mobile applications. Developers are burning the midnight oil in order to fulfill user requirements, by trying to develop more interactive and responsive applications.

To build enhanced websites or applications, developers have shunned the traditional JavaScript and HTML methodologies and are approaching advanced technology stacks like MEAN and MERN.

In this article lets understand what is MERN stack, what are its features and also the differences between MEAN and MERN and which one to choose?

What is a technology stack?

The technology stack is a set of frameworks and tools used to develop a software product. This set of frameworks and tools are very specifically chosen to work together in creating well-functioning software.

Here are some examples of widely used web development technology stacks today:

• MERN (MongoDB, ExpressJS, ReactJS, NodeJS)
• LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)
• MEAN (MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, NodeJS)

What is MERN Stack?

MERN Stack: MERN Stack is a Javascript Stack that is used for easier and faster deployment of full-stack web applications. MERN Stack comprises of 4 technologies namely: MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js. It is designed to make the development process smoother and easier. MERN is the acronym for MongoDB, Express JS, React JS and Node JS.

Each of these 4 powerful technologies provides an end-to-end framework for the developers to work in and each of these technologies play a big part in the development of web applications.

• MongoDB: A document-oriented, No-SQL database used to store the application data.
• NodeJS: The JavaScript runtime environment. It is used to run JavaScript on a machine rather than in a browser.
• ExpressJS: A framework layered on top of NodeJS, used to build the backend of a site using NodeJS functions and structures. Since NodeJS was not developed to make websites but rather run JavaScript on a machine, ExpressJS was developed.
• ReactJS: A library created by Facebook. It is used to build UI components that create the user interface of the single page web application.

Components of MERN stack :

MongoDB

·       MongoDB is an open-source, cross-platform, NoSql DBMS.

·    It is a document-oriented database, which means that data is saved using collections and documents, instead of tables and rows, like in a relational database. This makes possible easier and faster data integration within applications.

·       MongoDB stores the data in binary JSON format that allows the fast exchange of data between client and server.

·       MongoDB can be used for the storage of large volumes of data, which makes it highly scalable.

Architecture of MongoDB

·     MongoDB is an open-source, cross-platform, document-oriented NoSQL database that stores data in the form of documents and collections. A document is nothing but a record, that contains all information about itself. A group of documents is called a collection.

·    A document can contain a number of fields (value), regarding the details of the record. One document size can be different from the other as two different documents can store a varied number of fields. Every field (value) has an associated key mapped to it. The field can be of any data type like the general text, number, etc. A field can also be a link to another document or arrays. MongoDB uses BSON (binary encoding form of JSON), to include additional data types like date, that is not compatible with JSON.

·    There is no forced relation between the fields, but links and data models can be established while creation. Data models facilitate the storage of arrays, establish hierarchical relations, etc.

·       Data is stored in a stream, and not in a schema, unlike the RDBMS.

·   Mongo DB provides a JavaScript interface called the Mongo shell, used for querying and creating documents.

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Features of MongoDB

With MongoDB introduction in the market, more and more developers are using it in specific applications due to its many benefits and advantages.

Scalability

MongoDB is a specialized database for BigData processing. It can contain large volumes of data, therefore making it highly scalable. It also supports the concept of horizontal scaling, where data can be distributed across multiple DB instances. This helps in data load balancing as well as duplication of data as a backup.

Flexibility

MongodB is schema-less which means it doesn’t enforce relations between fields, rather allows the storage of values of any data type, in a stream. Since data is stored in a document/collection type of model, it offers flexibility in terms of data modeling, data alteration and updation, on the fly, without the hassle of schema updation, like in an RDBMS.

Sharding

Sharding is an interesting and very powerful methodology in MongoDB. MongoDB allows the distribution of data onto several servers, as opposed to a single server. For applications having huge volumes of data, the load can be balanced by storing data on several servers. This also helps in increasing the capacity of the database as well as concurrent and parallel processing of tasks.

Data replication and recovery

MongoDB provides specialized tools for data replication, as a backup, in times of any system failure. A main server, acting as the primary server, stores all the data and takes care of the read/write and other transactions. The secondary server is a replica of the primary server, that can take over and act as a primary server, in case the primary server crashes or fails, thereby providing high availability, all the time.

High Performance and Speed

MongoDB supports different features like dynamic ad-hoc querying, indexing for faster search functionality, tools like Aggregation pipeline for aggregation queries, etc. that help in faster processing. Querying is also quicker, as compared to a RDBMS, as related data are stored together in documents. This guarantees high performance, even in critical high volume situations.

MongoDB is a significant part of MEAN and MERN stack as their primary database for data storage. Written in JavaScript, it has easily blended with these stacks that are popular for building interactive and responsive web applications.

Apart from JavaScript, MongoDB is seamlessly compatible with several other programmings languages like Ruby and Python as well, therefore making it a sought after NoSQL database.

Express JS

Express is a web application framework for Node.js, another MERN component. Instead of writing full webserver code by hand on Node.js directly, developers use Express to simplify the task of writing server code. There’s no need to repeat the same code over and over, as you would with the Node.js HTTP module.

The Express framework is designed for building robust web applications and APIs. It’s known for its fast speed and minimalist structure, with many features available as plugins.

·    Express JS is a modular, lightweight framework of the Node JS, that helps in building web applications.

·      It is a server-side, back-end, JavaScript-based framework, that is designed to write simplified, fast, and secure applications.

·    It can be assumed that Express JS, runs on top of the Node JS, managing the server and its routes.

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React JS

React JS was originally created by a software engineer at Facebook, and was later open-sourced. It is maintained by Facebook, as well as a community of development companies and individual developers.

The React library can be used for creating views rendered in HTML. React views are declarative. This means that developers don’t have to worry about managing the effects of changes in the view’s state (the object that determines how components behave) or changes in the data.

Instead of relying on templates to automate the creation of repetitive HTML or DOM (Document Object Model) elements, React uses a full-featured programming language (JavaScript) to construct repetitive or conditional DOM elements.

With React, the same code can run on both the server and the browser.

React anchors the MERN stack. In a way, it’s the defining feature of the stack. It’s the one component that differentiates MERN from MEAN, another popular JavaScript stack that uses AngularJS (a front-end web application framework) instead of the React library.

·      React JS is an open-source jS library used to build user interfaces, typically for single-page applications.

·       React JS enables developers to modify/edit and refresh the page to view the changes without having to restart or reload the page.

·       React JS offers the facility of code reusability on multiple platforms.

·       It is fast and scalable.

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Node.js

Node.js was initially built for Google Chrome, and later open-sourced by Google in 2008. It is built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. It’s designed to build scalable network applications, and can execute JavaScript code outside of a browser.

Node.js works without an enclosing HTML page, instead of using its own module system based on CommonJS, to put together multiple JavaScript files.

·       Node JS is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment.

·       It is designed to run the JavaScript code outside the browser, on the server-side.

·       Node JS accesses the Node Package Manager (NPM), that hosts a large number of private and public packages, and is as well utilized for publishing Node JS projects.

·       It is based on the event-driven, non-blocking I/O model.

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Advantages of MERN stack

With MongoDB under its hood for higher scalability, Express JS for speed enhancements, JavaScript as its primary language for end-to-end development, MERN is one of the best full-stack development suites after MEAN.

React JS is the best when it comes to UI layer abstraction. It provides the best-in-class tools for faster code development. While React is only a library, it gives you the freedom to build the application and organize the code the way you want, by providing the necessary tools. Hence, it is better than Angular in terms of UI rendering and performance.

The main advantage for developers using the MERN stack is that every line of code is written in JavaScript. This is a programming language that’s used everywhere, both for client-side code and server-side code. With one language across tiers, there’s no need for context switching.

For tech stack with multiple programming languages, developers have to figure out how to interface them together. With the JavaScript stack, developers only need to be proficient in JavaScript and JSON.

Overall, using the MERN stack enables developers to build highly efficient web applications.

What is MERN Stack and how is it different from MEAN stack?

While both MERN and MEAN are similar w.r.t MongoDB, Express and Node, the only difference is the front-end framework, React in MERN and Angular in MEAN.

React is a library that helps you build dynamic user interfaces. It is a repository of tools and functions that can be accessed to design, build and render the UI components. React is the best when it comes to controlling the state of events, when there is a large amount of dynamic data to be updated. Since React is just a library, it is the developer’s responsibility to maintain the code and application and hence often remains unorganized, as opposed to Angular’s systematic codebase.

Angular is an MVC framework, having a specific system architecture. This enforces the code and application to be well organized, therefore easy to maintain. Angular follows the two-way data binding model which makes it difficult to handle change events, for a large volumes of data.