Ruby on Rails vs Node.js: What is the Best in 2024?

Choosing a front-end technology stack for your website isn’t tough – CSS, HTML5, and JavaScript are obvious choices. On the other side, back-end technology is far more versatile, Ruby on Rails vs Node.js have recently emerged as the most popular back-end languages. To assist you in deciding between Ruby on Rails vs Node.js, we’ll offer our experience working with Ruby on Rails vs Node.js, including all pros and cons identified by the team. We’ll also discuss use cases and practical applications. By the end of this article, you’ll know if Node.js or Ruby on Rails is the best fit for your project.

Overview of Node.js and Ruby on Rails

Node.js isn’t a language; however, it is a runtime environment that allows users to transform client-side code into server-side. Node converts JavaScript to machine code, which is quickly processed by the hardware. It is a framework based on the Chrome V8 engine, and it’s one of the fastest engines that exist, which is why runtime’s fast conversion speed.

Ruby on Rails is a framework for developing websites. Rails were designed to assist handle internal logic, routines, and data computing. Ruby on Rails is known for its efficiency in code and its speed. The same thing that takes a plethora of lines of Java can be accomplished with just 5-10 lines in Ruby.

Let’s compare Ruby on Rails vs Node.js by looking at their pros, cons, and usage cases.

Where is It Better to Use Node.js?

Node.js is a command-line environment that allows you to run the identical JS code that you’re creating for your front end. It lets you share codes with the back-end and the browser and handle multiple tasks simultaneously. Let’s examine how these advantages are helpful in various elements of web application development.

Server-side development

Node is adept at establishing efficient communications between the client and the server. It employs a long-polling technique that allows the application to process multiple requests. Node.js does not wait for every query to be processed before starting handling new incoming ones.

Node.js is ideal for real-time applications such as messengers, online games, chatrooms, and real-time collaboration platforms. The possibility of using JavaScript both on the front-end and the back-end can make development more efficient and more straightforward. If you have worked previously using JS and are interested in the process of learning Node.js to run back-ends will not be a challenge.

API development

Node.js is a preferred software for developing REST API development. Representational State Transfer (REST) – it’s an architecture that allows users to get output to their web requests rapidly. The basic principles of REST development are to be uniform, stateless, client-server, have a layered system, offer a cacheable architecture, and respond on-demand.

REST APIs are beneficial for web development. If a user is searching for something, a website application uses REST APIs to provide results from the source. REST APIs link the user’s input to the program’s code, creating a communication channel. Node.js, thanks to its fast processing speed for requests and JS technology stack, is the obvious first option for developing REST APIs.

Microservices

Node.js’s architecture is in perfect alignment with the microservices’ structure. Its non-blocking request processing algorithms and event-driven approach allow us to connect multiple services and handle many internal requests simultaneously. Microservices have to be in communication constantly, and that’s why ensuring the speed of data processing is crucial.

Microservice architecture and Node.js are focused on the speed of execution and effectiveness. The whole point of a microservices architecture is to allow developers to create scalable and efficient platforms by breaking down functionality into manageable components—Node.js assists in bringing this idea to life by utilizing a fast V8 engine and non-blocking processing.

Companies that use Node.js

Businesses are switching to Node.js due to its performance and responsiveness. Node.js is currently being used in LinkedIn, Uber, Medium, New York Times, and Hapi. For some companies, a transition to Node.js is coupled with switching to the microservice architecture.

For example, Netflix decentralized its website platform and employed Node.js as its primary back-end application to accomplish this. This resulted in the app’s more responsiveness and scalability. The same thing was implemented through the PayPal development group. The company utilized Node for prototyping and development -The team reported an astounding improvement in the efficiency of the team and the speed of the app’s performance.

The Issue with Node.js

Node.js is not an ideal back-end tool. JavaScript is a tool for front-end development that’s not well-adapted to specific development aspects on servers, and it’s designed not suitable for back-end functionality. Has to compensate for JS’s inability to work on the server-side and, as a result, offers a somewhat limited experience — here’s why.

Processor consuming tasks for Node.js applications

Node.js is a single-threaded language, meaning that it will only process just one task at a given time unless you create them in a sequence of events. If we’re talking about quick processes, Node.js executes them quickly. But, if you are discussing time-consuming processes, Node does not treat the event as an event. One long-term task can block all the others.

This approach results in high CPU consumption and a drastic reduction in speed. Thus, most Node.js benefits are helpful when you don’t load the app with tasks that consume a lot of CPU, and once you cross that line, Node.js loses many of its advantages.

Security concerns aren’t easy to resolve

Node.js is well-known for its extensive ecosystem. This open-source management platform provides developers with reusable code, plugins, and add-ons, increasing the versatility of the application.

Node.js contains a wealth of NPM packages – Using ready components reduces time and could improve code quality. But many teams aren’t aware of the risks associated with the npm package. The issue is that the Node.js team just recently started checking modules for security concerns. The majority of the NPM packages, such as hard-cookie, js.com, and many others, have dependencies, vulnerabilities, and room for potential security risks.

Where is It Preferable to Use Ruby on Rails?

Ruby and Rails are utilized as a back-end framework for web applications, and it’s renowned for their effectiveness and scalability. You can write sophisticated functionality using fewer code lines than what you’d have to need in Java and Node.js.

Full-stack web application

Ruby on Rails is a highly structured framework for web development. Rails have a lot of rules on how code should be organized. The framework is built on its Model, View, and Controller framework. Defining a controller, view, and route is necessary to allow an application to respond to requests. Establishing an MVC framework can be a time-consuming process; however, in the end, the code is well-organized and easy to read. In the end, You’ll have an efficient, easy to edit and maintain.

Content management systems

Ruby on Rails is not yet the top option for content management systems development, and PHP remains the preferred option. However, Ruby on Rails entered the field in the last few months and has many competitive advantages. Ruby on Rails allows rapid writing of rich functionality because of its high abstraction levels. It is possible to map whole databases and tables as distinct objects, and You can refer to a big chunk of functionality with several lines of code.

Prototyping

Ruby on Rails allows you to write code faster and implement built-in features available in the ecosystem. Suppose you’re developing the minimally viable version of a product. The main goal is operational efficiency and well-organized development processes. Ruby on Rails offers multiple command-line code builders that let developers write code from scratch. The code can provide more than half the features of an open-source library.

The issue with Ruby on Rails

Many developers are wondering about the efficacy of the writing process for Ruby as well as Ruby on Rails can be and how is it that the language and the framework aren’t more well-known? While it is certain that the language will win inefficiency, its popularity isn’t exactly stellar.

Speed of performance

When we look at the speeds of Ruby on Rails vs. Node.js and Node.js, even the most experts Ruby on Rails developers acknowledge that the framework is slow. Although it improves its speed with each release, it’s still smaller than Node.js. There are many reasons for the slow performance.

• Ruby is an interpreter tool that means that the code isn’t converted into a machine-readable version. It’s, therefore, more difficult for hardware to process and read efficiently.
• Node.js provides its users with the Just In Time compilation which permits turning JS source code to a By code, not the machine language. Removing another conversion step boosts the speed of performance of the application. Ruby is, by contrast, implemented JIT only in the most recent versions. The technology is not perfect, even if the current version of JIT reduces the speed of code processing.

Ruby allows you to run multiple threads at once, which means that the issue of handling tasks that are CPU intensive isn’t as severe as it is using Node. But when you’re the comparison of Ruby on Rails vs. Node.js performance, Rails won’t be your first option.

Garbage collection ineffectiveness

It’s a fact that languages that are garbage-collected tend to slow down. At any point, developers may notice an abrupt increase in the use of memory in their applications and a significant decrease in performance. The higher the application capacity and the more significant memory that every version of the garbage collector will consume.

For Ruby, GC.disable will stop garbage collection. There are also libraries for handling garbage-collector-related memory leaks, but they mainly act as a temporary solution.

No Static Typing System

If we compare Ruby with Node.js, the absence of a static type system is among the main disadvantages. With Node.js, TypeScript allows added features that JS doesn’t use. These features are written and presented in the form of typical JavaScript variables. There is no distinction in how the language handles its native and non-native parts.

TypeScript is a must-have to improve code reliability, aiding team communication and documentation of the development process. It also lets you use specific features to increase the application’s compatibility with specific browsers. It allows you to type code, arrange features, and create new functions, and in Ruby, these functions aren’t available.

Read more: Django vs Ruby on rails – Which is the better?

Ruby on Rails vs Node.js

Is Node.js faster than Ruby?

Node.js

One of the most impressive advantages of Node.js is its speed. The Single-threaded, asynchronous, non-blocking execution of the Javascript V8 engine dramatically contributes to the fast performance of Node’s system. Node.js can handle a vast number of concurrent requests. Due to the inherent characteristics of Node.js, the technology utilizes a single processor core and memory effectively.

Numerous businesses are using Node.js in their mobile app back-end stacks. For instance, technology giant Paypal has increased its requests per second compared with its Java application, and Paypal also reported an increase of 35% in the average response time.

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails, specifically Ruby (the language built by Rails ), is generally regarded as slower than Node.js. There is a myriad of reasons for Ruby’s slow .performance.

Ruby’s Garbage Collector (GC) uses a slow algorithm that stops the application when garbage collection is in progress.

High memory consumption for objects and other basic variables

LinkedIn has experienced significant performance declines due to Rails’ string manipulation and JSON translation. After the switch to Node.js, The company reduced server capacity from 30 down to three and gained 20x faster performance in some cases.

However, it doesn’t mean that Ruby on Rails isn’t worthy of being a back-end tech. Ruby’s developers are actively involved in resolving any issues with performance. For instance, the highly-anticipated Ruby 3 included numerous performance enhancements like concurrently and MJIT. Additionally, not every digital application demands the super-fast speeds of Node.js, and the main factor is the number of users that will be served.

Scalability

Node.js

Scalability refers to an application that can efficiently handle various user requests per minute. There are numerous options in Node.js that allow scaling. Its most recent version has cluster module capability and supports microservices. This means breaking the application down into smaller parts. The microservices architecture can scale up or down according to the demands. Additionally, Node.js lets you load balance on multiple CPU cores, making the app scalable on single servers.

Based on reports, Walmart has successfully changed its old system to microservices using Node.js as the back-end technology. The company has experienced an increase of 98% in mobile-based conversion.

Ruby

RoR supports scalability by improving applications’ performance and infrastructure, so you’ll need to add some resources to reap the scalability benefits. Yet, several top tech companies with huge customer bases, such as Airbnb, GitHub, and Shopify, are using RoR within their technology stacks.

Read more: Ruby on Rails vs Python: What’s the Difference.

Speed of development

Node.js

The asynchronous and event-driven aspects of the technology might be challenging for beginners to grasp. But, Node.js uses JavaScript, the most used and popular programming language globally, according to the Stack Overflow Survey 2021.

With Node.js, developers can develop the front-end and back-end of mobile applications by using this same programming language (e.g., React Native on the front and Node.js at the rear). The numerous frameworks, libraries from third parties (thanks to the massive repository of the npm repository), and learning resources allow developers to develop mobile apps fast.

For instance, There’s TypeScript -the programming language developed by Microsoft to aid in developing large-scale applications using Node.js, React or React Native.

Ruby

RoR is specifically designed to speed up prototyping and developing applications. It comes with the Object Relational Mapping (ORM) system that allows you to connect business logic and the data layer to create and test a complete and functioning prototype quickly.

Ruby language is simple and easy to write. Additionally, you can build an intricate application in just some commands with complete scripts, modules, and a package management system. Additionally, there are a variety of third-party libraries or Ruby gems that allow rapid development.

Community Support

Node.js

A variety of community forums are available for Node.js mobile application development, including Github, Stack Overflow, and Reddit. In the survey of 2021 developers conducted by StackOverflow, Node.js scored among the top technologies. In addition, several of the top tech companies, such as Facebook and Google, have been involved in the Node.js development process, which makes it a trusted and reliable open-source technology.

Ruby on Rails

RoR also has a vibrant community of innovative developers. Several community forums are available for Rails mobile app development, such as Github, Slack, and Gitter. Rails developers are actively engaged in improving the existing functionalities and new feature development. They frequently update the source code, fix bugs, and address security vulnerabilities. With Rails, it’s relatively easy to identify the exact piece of code (or gem) you want to incorporate into your application.

Testing Support

Node.js

Node.js provides full test automation and debugging tools with its vast library of libraries from third parties. Several automated testing frameworks, such as Mocha, Jasmine, Jest, Chai, and mobile-based testing tools, such as webdriverIO are available.

Ruby on Rails

It is a fact that the Ruby community is actively engaged in the testing process and automation. Testing is an integral part of Ruby on Rails, making it easier for developers to check the code they write as they build the back-end. Because Ruby is built upon the MVC architecture, it can automatically generate skeleton test code while developing the coon. There are a variety of testing frameworks for RoR, e.g., Rspec, Minitest, or Cucumber.

Read more: Ruby on Rails vs Javascript: Which is Better?

What Is the Best Back-end for a Mobile Application?

The back-end of mobile applications is heavily dependent on the purpose of the mobile application and the business’s short-term and long-term goals. Node.js and RoR are among the top back-end technologies used for Android and iOS app development.

The secret to selecting the best option is the developers’ ability to write the back-end using a particular technology or language. Unexperienced developers could create low-quality mobile app back-ends even in top solutions.

Mobile apps with Node.js back-end

With Node.js, it is possible to create highly scalable applications that can handle the processing of multiple concurrent requests by users. 

Here are the types of applications in which you can make use of Node.js for the back-end:

• Social media Applications: These apps must manage many interactions with users. So, efficiency and scalability are the main aspects when creating apps. Currently, Node.js is used by major social media sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Publishing applications: Cartovera can be an excellent example of Node.js implemented on distributed servers.
• Single-page applications: Such programs are only run on one page on the web browser. Gmail illustrates this, which displays the latest messages on one page.
• Real-time chat applications: Remote assistance is live chat applications built in Node.js, React Native, MongoDB, and various other technologies.
• E-learning platform: Quizlet has served more than 18 million learners per month and has over 30 million active learners.

Mobile apps with Ruby on Rails on the back-end

Ruby on Rails is great for speeding up prototyping. With an abundance of Ruby gems, developers can build various features right off the bat.

Here are some examples in which you can rely on RoR as the back-end for your mobile application:

• E-commerce applications: There are a variety of Ruby gems that can cover the majority of the functionality, from security to authentication. Shopify utilizes Ruby on Rails.
• Applications that require rapid development to meet deadlines.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) projects that make use of APIs extensively
• Projects rely on extensive databases, such as Github and all its repositories.

Conclusions

Node.js, along with Ruby, are both extremely powerful for back-end development. However, neither of them is 100% perfect. Node.js’ primary selling point is its ability to use JavaScript and high-performance speed for the entire technology stack. Node.js compares to Ruby on Rails performance differs in speed and processing capabilities.

• Node.js effectively handles operations that are short-term and swiftly responds to user input. Its non-blocking process and an event-driven syntax make Node.js extraordinarily responsive and flexible back-end languages.
• Node.js is a great web-socket client and efficiently handles up to 10,000 simultaneous requests. However, Ruby cannot cope with such loads, and you’ll risk a random server crash.

Ruby on Rails and Ruby are recognized for their excellent design (syntax is simple and easy to master). The code quality is much better than that of Node.js developers aren’t required to repeat their code or use excessive specifications. The language isn’t as efficient in performance, but the development process is among the most efficient, not just when compared to Node.

Which is more effective: Ruby on Rails vs Node.js? Both languages can be used for different kinds of projects. Ruby is an excellent choice for teams who see the speed of development as their top prioritization (Saas Development, MVP, etc.). Node.js development tools are the best solution for real-time web and single-page apps. 

If you’re thinking of an application for back-end developers to build your application, let us know the idea you have in mind. Our Bestarion development team will determine the project’s priorities and aid you in choosing the best tool that will fit your needs as the glove.