What Is Node.js?
If you're a web developer, you've probably heard about Node.js (sometimes called just "Node".) If you haven't heard of it, Node.js is an implementation of server-side JavaScript which uses Google's V8 Engine from Chrome. It also uses a host of custom written modules to provide an entire framework for developing your web applications. But server-side JavaScript has been done before. What's different this time around?
Server-Side JavaScript Conclusion
The key design difference is Node.js is event-based and non-blocking. This means one Node.js process can serve many hundreds of client requests. This is like nginx, for example, and unlike Apache. With Apache, each request gets its own child process. Busy sites using Node.js can handle a lot more traffic while using less memory, and probably fewer CPU cycles as well.
