Must Have Guide of MEAN Stack for Beginners

They say achieving the unimaginable is possible with the right technology and the MEAN stack is one of the innovative inventions that make the audience believe in these words. When it comes to full-scale web development, MEAN stack has emerged as one of the best technologies that help developers handle a complete web app development project in one go. Full-scale web development demands a constant focus on several aspects, including web servers, database systems, runtime environments, and frontend and backend JavaScript frameworks. These aspects require the necessary skill sets that web developers must possess for successful project delivery. The MEAN stack is considered an ideal fit in this situation, which takes you a step above the HTML and CSS and helps you walk with today's trends, revolving around the four technologies in this tech stack (a set of programming languages and software tools that help ease the software development process.) Do you want to learn more about the MEAN stack?  

This blog post will provide a detailed look at what MEAN stack is and how its components and benefits can boost the web app development process. So, what are you waiting for? Read on to learn more.

What is MEAN Stack Development?

The MEAN stack is a software stack. It is a set of technology layers that helps create modern applications in the most popular programming language, JavaScript. MEAN stack represents JavaScript as a full stack development language that runs everything (frontend to backend) in an app. 

MEAN stack is built with four technology layers, including-

• MongoDB: A database server that use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) and that stores data structures in a binary JSON format
• ExpressJS: A server-side JavaScript framework
• AngularJS: A client-side JavaScript framework
• Node.js: A JavaScript runtime

Is MEAN Right for You?

Now you know what MEAN stack is. But how would you determine if this technology is the right pick for you? Well, there are a few reasons why this technology stack can be the perfect choice for your project, especially when it comes to developing modern web apps. 

• Create highly scalable applications that can be optimized for cloud deployment.
• Enables handling large amounts of data conveniently with the flexibility of MongoDB.
• The single language use can streamline development across the entire application.
• Makes deployment easier with a built-in web server.

Choosing the right software stack is crucial to building an application from scratch, as it reduces development time and helps streamline resources. Each component in this MEAN stack is popular for its own benefits. It is vital to stay updated to walk at the same pace in this fast-evolving technology world. 

Reasons Why Choose MEAN Stack in 2022

We have also listed a few benefits of the MEAN stack to give you more clarity about this technology stack-

1. MEAN stack development is economical. There is no need to hire separate developers for frontend, backend, and database management. MEAN developers can handle the project all by themselves. It reduces the cost of building a web app to a good extent. 
2. MEAN stack and its components offer the ease of testing an application on the cloud platform easily. 
3. JavaScript promotes a holistic and smooth development process.
4. Mean stack uses JavaScript throughout the code, and JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages. It has an active developer community that provides solutions to problems faced by JavaScript developers.
5. The non-blocking architecture of the MEAN stack also speeds up the development process. 

MEAN Stack Components and Their Benefits

Let’s dig deeper into the MEAN stack components and see how these technologies can benefit a developer in web app development. 

1. MongoDB for Database

The first thing that catches the developer’s attention about the MEAN stack is that it includes the most dynamic NoSQL database, MongoDB. But why say yes to MongoDB when you can choose MySQL?

Benefits of MongoDB

MySQL has been the most preferred choice of the most developer but MEAN developers pick MongoDB because-

• One can Expect More Speed and Better Performance

Talking about MySQL, it works well with structured data sets that are basically small in size. MySQL will not be the right pick if you have large unstructured data sets, as it can take much time. MongoDB has the ability to handle large unstructured data sets at lightning-fast speeds. 

There is no shadow of a doubt that MongoDB is a requisite part of MEAN stack components, and its benefits clearly shed a light on this fact.

• MongoDB Offers More Flexibility in Schema Design

MySQL restricts the developer from making changes if no changes are made in the schema design. It results in an increase in the development time and delays the deployment process. But the story is different with MongoDB. With this technology, you can expect flexibility in schema design. This database works well no matter if you drop a few documents having no relation to each other. 

2. Express.js for Javascript App Development

The backend of any web app can do wonders. But if it is complex enough to understand, it’s a matter of concern, and you must draw your attention to it. When your backend will be complicated, the application will also be equally complicated. We suggest you reap the benefits of Express.js to handle the overall performance of the backend. Express.js is another major highlight of the MEAN stack component that is easy to use and equipped with the right features to make the web app efficient and robust. 

Express.js is a flexible and efficient Node.js framework that ensures smooth data transfer to the end-user, and it is possible by managing the interactions between the frontend and the database. But is this reason enough to choose Express.js for web app development? If not, read the below-listed points, highlighting the benefits of this popular MEAN stack component.

Benefits of Express.js 

• Express.js is a minimalist framework designed to handle the application processes.
• CommonJS in Express.js saves time, eliminating the need to redefine a variable within a shared namespace.
• It allows you to scale your app quickly by allowing you to add nodes and extra resources per your requirements.
• An excellent error handler that provides simple templates to increase development speed.
• Powered by Google’s V8 engine, Express.js enhances performance without any lags or errors.
• Express.js supports the caching feature that declines the need to re-execute the codes and often in return reduces the loading time of your web pages.

3. AngularJS for Frontend Development

Launched in 2010, AngularJS is one of the most popular frontend JavaScript frameworks that can give an edge to web applications. Even its enhanced version, Angular 2+ (simply called Angular) has gained applause from its fans too. But what does this MEAN stack component bring to the table that makes many developers choose it for their web app development projects? 

Benefits of AngularJS

Here are a few benefits of AngularJS that you should know-

• It has a component-based architecture making it easy for beginners to understand the application code. 
• CLI (command line interface) of Angular improves the code quality and simplifies the entire app development process.
• Angular has a modular structure that segregates the entire application into several features, which helps developers easily identify the reusable chunks of code and save development time.
•  The dependency injection functions in Angular speed up the development process and enhances the overall app performance. 
• The Ivy renderer makes heavy apps much lighter by minimizing the bundle size. 
• This MEAN stack component also facilitates lazy loading that helps browsers to display the data to the user without taking much time. 
• Typescript in Angular provides an ease to developers to find and correct errors.
• Developers can save a lot of time using the declarative view function, as it automatically loads the components as per the layout.

4. Node.js for Backend Development

Node.js is a perfect MEAN stack component to handle the backend. Node.js is an open-source JavaScript framework built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime to create fast and scalable network applications. This technology stack uses asynchronous events in order to process multiple connections at the same time. This feature of Node.js helps the framework use a single-thread architecture in order to provide a smooth user experience across multiple connections.

Benefits of Node.js

Node.js also offers a number of benefits, and some of them are listed below- 

• It decreases the time to market cycle.
• Node.js provide immediate feedback from the production environment making deployment a not-so-complicated process. 
• Node.js allows good scalability.
• No need to switch between the backend and frontend.
• Node.js is a well-tested tool that comes with a huge developer support community.
• MVP development is simple and quick with Node.js.
• It doesn’t have a steep learning curve. If you have a good knowledge of JavaScript and object-oriented programming basics, you can easily master Node.js.

Final Words

So, now you have ample knowledge of the MEAN stack and its components. If you’re interested in web application development and looking for MEAN stack developers to help you in your project, reach out to 75way. 

75way is a leading MEAN stack development company, backed by 70+ experts having a good knowledge of technology stack and know how to deliver world-class solutions to real-world business problems.