Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a web browser. Node.js allows developers to create server-side and network applications with ease. It has been used by many companies such as Netflix, PayPal, Uber and Walmart for its scalability and speed benefits.
Node.js runs on the Google V8 engine which compiles the code written in JavaScript into machine code that can be executed directly by computers without any interpretation or translation from another language like Python or Java. Node also provides access to several built-in libraries for common tasks such as file system manipulation, networking protocols (HTTP/HTTPS), cryptography functions etc., making it easier for developers to build powerful and scalable applications quickly without having to write complex logic themselves.
Developers can use Node’s npm package manager to easily install packages created by other developers which help them save time while building their own projects instead of reinventing the wheel every time they want to integrate a feature into their application (such as authentication). The packages are organized in a public registry called npm Registry where anyone can browse through more than 800 thousand packages available today!
The popularity of node is due mainly because of its asynchronous nature; meaning that requests are sent out concurrently without waiting for one request being completed before sending out another – this increases throughput significantly over traditional synchronous programming models since multiple requests can be processed at once instead of waiting for each one individually leading up to faster response times overall when dealing with large volumes of data or large user numbers simultaneously accessing your application (i..e high scalability).
Finally, node is often used together with ExpressJS framework which helps provide additional features like routing HTTP requests based on URLs requested, templating HTML pages dynamically using view engines like ejs etc., thus providing all you need in order process HTTP requests quickly & efficiently right out of the box so you don’t have worry about writing all these yourself if not necessary
