Today, the world has ushered into the digitally intensive time where everybody needs to keep up with an evolving IT workspace. And to keep abreast of the rapidly developing technology, these new-age developers are buckling down to build something extraordinary yet user-friendly to ease the tasks of the programmers. Thus, developers use the faster and more operative web procedure called ‘Stack’ and consequently, the concept of MEAN Stack comes into the picture. But before moving forward, we’d like you to be acquainted with the term ‘Stack’.

The Stack is a set of computer languages or technologies, which are used to build the websites or mobile applications. Now that you’re aware of the Stack technology, it is the time to be educated about the MEAN Stack — a full-stack development toolkit.

What is MEAN Stack All About?

MEAN Stack is a user-friendly full-stack combination of JavaScript and its frameworks that are a supreme medium for creating dynamic websites. MEAN Stack is an abbreviation of JavaScript-based technologies — MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, and Node.js. Let’s dig into these core components of MEAN Stack here!

MEAN Stack Core Components

1. MongoDB

MongoDB is the first component of the Mean Stack frame and is considered as the prominent NoSQL database, which makes the business more scalable. MongoDB is a sagacious choice for developers when it comes to managing tons of data containing massive tables. Opposing to any other database, MongoDB saves data in a binary JSON format and does not require updating the entire table, which makes even easier to transfer the data between client and server.

2. Express

Express, inspired by the popular Ruby framework, Sinatra, is a lightweight and flexible node.js framework that builds web applications and provides plenteous features to create a single or multi-page web applications.

3. Angular

Developed by the colossal company like Google, Angular is a front-end JavaScript framework for developing the single-page applications which comes with the handy features like the two-way data binding. Angular gives you the absolute solution to develop fast and amazing front-end apps.

4. Node.js

Last but not the least component of MEAN Stack is Node.js, which is a runtime environment for JavaScript execution and performs beyond a traditional web server. Node.js is built on Google Chrome’s V8 JavaScript runtime that helps build extremely ascendible and contemporary web applications at a rapid pace. Node.js works on multi-platforms like Windows, Linux and OS X. Moreover, Node.js provides a server-side solution, which enables the JavaScript implementation on both client and server-side. Such features make the application development with MEAN Stack more effective and efficient. Let’s take a look at the other benefits of MEAN Stack.

Advantages of MEAN Stack

1. JavaScript

Since the MEAN Stack works on the JavaScript, it makes it more constructive and productive as JavaScript is the most popular programming language across the globe.

2. Single Language Platform

Unlike other stacks, for instance, LAMP, which uses PHP for writing apps in the server, query MySQL data using SQL and uses JavaScript on the client side, MEAN Stack uses a single language. See, how simple is that!

3. Performance

MEAN Stack process is much faster than other traditional client-server applications, especially, its Angular.js and Node.js.

4. Tons of Communities and Threads

MEAN Stack provides the valuable support from its numerous communities and industry leaders. Besides, MongoDB is the leading NoSQL database provider; Node.js gets support from the massive cloud providers AWS and Azure while Google supports AngularJS.

5. Caters to Big Players

You can measure the importance of the MEAN Stack by the fact that the giant companies like Google, Netflix, LinkedIn, PayPal and UBER use the MEAN Stack for their business.

While MEAN Stack has a number of advantages, its components are still compared with the other stacks’. Seeing the popularity of Angular and React JS, the most often comparison we see is between the AngularJS and ReactJS. Hence, we’d throw some light on these two frameworks and find out who’s the big dog in this fight!

Cos it’s Angular VS React JS

AngularJS is a complete framework, which comprises various tools and design while ReactJS is just a tiny view library you’d need during the apps making. Let’s compare them to some standards here:

3rd Party Compatibility

React doesn’t work with DOM as it is the wholesome JavaScript logic. However, seeing its reputation and prominence, the DOM based libraries have their alternatives in ReactJS.

Angular requires type definitions for every library, which is a bit annoying.

Scalability

Owing to its design and powerful command-line interface, Angular is easy to scale.

React is combatively less scalable.

Tooling

When it comes compare tooling, both have the command-line interface (CLI) and are compatible to work with any web pack-like tool.

Alike AngularJS and ReactJS, you might come across with another classy question that if MongoDB should be preferred over MySQL or other databases. Well, let’s scrutinize that too!

Why Prefer MongoDB Over MySQL?

On account of its fancy features, speed and qualities, MongoDB has a lot of uses. MongoDB has the collaborative and helpful community as compared to MySQL. Besides, lots of developers experience difficulties with large data volumes. Though MySQL is renowned for its high performance, data security and accessible approach, it lacks in handling the unstructured, complex and large volume of data. Let’s take a look at the feature comparison here!

MEAN Stack Analysis

MEAN Stack is a revolutionary movement in the field of web development as it offers some great features along with an up-to-date and effective approach to web development. It gives you all the features and support a Mean Stack Developer might need. Unlike the other traditional web applications, MEAN Stack uses the state-of-the-art single-page applications, which do not require the whole web page to be refreshed for each server request. Moreover, the MEAN Stack development company keeps it in mind the use and nature of the framework and grab all it’s advantages to make up a great web application.