What is MERN Stack?

Most web and app development companies have been utilizing various technologies to build an optimized and efficient stack for app development. A stack is a combination of multiple technologies and programming languages or a combination of different software tools. The main motto to choose these sets of tools, technologies, and frameworks is to develop a fully-functional application.

One of the important and widely used technology stacks for developing web applications is the “MERN stack”. MERN stack consists of 4 components MongoDB, ExpressJS, ReactJS, and NodeJS, this combination of technology is based on a JavaScript stack, and it’s open-source, which makes the web applications development process smoother.

MERN stack is one of the most potent and popular stacks to develop web applications. The other accessible technology stack is MEAN, The only difference between MERN and MEAN: MERN uses ReactJS for front-end development; on the other hand, MEAN uses AngularJS for the front-end development. For now, let us, deep-dive into MERN stack development.

MERN Stack Components

MongoDB:

It’s a document-oriented, NoSQL database used by your back-end application to store the application data.

MongoDB is a schema-less, distributed database where it uses JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) based query language to store data in flexible documents. The data structure is changed with time, due to the content, number, and sizes of various fields in the document.

ExpressJS:

ExpressJS is the web application framework for NodeJS, another component in the MERN stack. ExpressJS simplifies the task of writing code instead of writing the webserver code on NodeJS by hand; there’s no need to write the code multiple times as you do it with the NodeJS HTTP module

The ExpressJS helps to create robust web applications and APIs with its full potential. Express is known for its speed and minimal structure. One can take advantage of the features available as plugins.

ReactJS:

A JavaScript library created by Facebook. It’s used to build front-end UI components that create the user interface of web applications.

ReactJS is an open-source library maintained by Facebook and its community. React uses a full-featured JavaScript programming language to build conditional or repetitive DOM (Document Oriented Model) elements. Using React, one can run the same code on the server and the browser side.

React is the only component that defines the MERN stack from the MEAN stack, as MEAN and MERN both use similar components except MEAN uses Angular for front-end and MERN uses React for front-end app development.

Many successful companies use ReactJS for their application development like:

Autochat.io – A Conversational Customer Engagement Software

Uber – Ride-hailing Company

Dropbox – File Hosting Service

NodeJS

NodeJS is a JavaScript runtime environment built for Google Chrome and later open-sourced by Google in 2008. NodeJS was built on Chrome’s v8 JavaScript engine. It helps to build scalable network applications, and it can also execute JS code outside of the browser.

NodeJS uses its module system called CommonJS without enclosing the HTML page. It used to run JavaScript on the machine instead of running in a browser.

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Benefits of MERN Stack

• The entire code is written in JavaScript; this programming language is used for both client-side and server-side.

• MERN development process is smoother, because of the MVC(Model View Controller) architecture support.

• There is no hassle of multi-language interfering; developers only need to be proficient in JavaScript and JSON.

• Popular, open-source and widely used stack, you can find solutions and support from the vast community.

• MERN stack development covers all the aspects of web application development, i.e., from front-end development (client-side) to back-end development (server-side)

• Pre-built extensive suite tools are available for testing.

Drawbacks

MERN is considered a simple, smooth, and efficient stack. However, there is only one drawback to MERN, which is scaling. React is a library, whereas Angular is a framework. When it comes to vast applications, we require third-party libraries to function smoothly. As a library, React holds back from Angular. As a framework, Angular can easily attach third-party libraries efficiently.

Conclusion

The above write-up explains clearly about the MERN stack, Its components, benefits, and drawbacks so that you can clearly understand every aspect of the MERN stack when it comes to web app development. MERN is the trending stack for web development with many benefits. MERN stack development will highly be benefited when it comes to building small to mid-sized apps. When it comes to large enterprise applications, the MEAN stack is the way to go.