Node.js Tutorial - Node.js vs Tranditional Web Server

Node.js is focused on creating highly performant applications.

Most web applications depend on reading data from disk or from another network source.

Traditional Web Servers uses a Process Per Request.

Traditional servers used to spin up a new process to handle every single web request.

Spinning a new process for each request is an expensive operation, both in terms of CPU and memory.

Traditional Web Servers Using a Thread Pool

Example

Node.js uses a single thread to handle requests.


function longRunningOperation(callback) { 
    // simulate a 3 second operation 
    setTimeout(callback, 3000); /*from www  .j a  va2s .  c  o m*/
} 

function userClicked() { 
    console.log('starting a long operation'); 
    longRunningOperation(function () {
         console.log('ending a long operation');
    }); 
} 
// simulate a user action 
userClicked();