What is MEAN Stack? MEAN Stack Components and Benefits

MEAN stack is an open-source web development technology that has gained significant popularity in recent years. MEAN is an acronym for MongoDB, Express.js, Angular.js, and Node.js, which are the four essential components that make up this technology stack. This stack is known for its flexibility, scalability, and robustness, making it an excellent choice for developing dynamic and modern web applications. 

With its powerful set of components and active developer community, MEAN stack offers numerous benefits to developers and businesses, including faster development time, improved productivity, and cost-effectiveness. This blog aims to provide an in-depth understanding of MEAN stack and its components, along with the benefits of using this technology for web development.

What is MEAN stack for web application development? 

MEAN stack is an acronym for a web application that uses popular web application development technologies like 

M-MongoDB

A popular database server that stores data structures in a binary JSON format. MongoDB is categorised as a NoSQL database program and it helps in working with large scale data sets very efficiently.

E-Express.js

The beauty of Express.js is that it is a minimal open source and flexible backend web application development framework which makes the job of developers easy.

A-Angular.js

Mainly used to build single page web applications, Angular.js is an open source front end framework based on javascript.

N-Node.js

An open source, cross platform runtime JavaScript environment, Node.js is a great platform for developing fast and scalable server-side and networking applications.

The moral of the story is that MEAN stack is essentially a software development stack that announces the arrival of JavaScript as a full stack development language proving to be a major benefit of using MEAN stack and its components for developing your web application.

This Means(pun intended) that if you hire MEAN stack developers, then you will essentially cut your team into half because you won't have to hire separate backend and frontend developers. 

Components of MEAN Stack

Let us dissect the various MEAN stack components to understand them in a better manner.

1. MongoDB for database

The first benefit of MEAN stack and its components is that it has MongoDB as its first component. MongoDB is one of the most dynamic NoSQL databases out there.

Why choose MongoDB over MySQL

MongoDB is more flexible in terms of schema design

MySQL would not allow you to do changes without changing your schema design. This considerably slows down the development and deployment process and binds you in terms of flexibility.

Flexibility in terms of schema design tilts the scales in favour of MongoDB, as it works perfectly fine even if you drop a few documents which do not have any relation with each other in MongoDB. This is the power of non relational databases.

MongoDB facilitates more speed and better performance

MySQL works well with structured data sets that are small in size. But if you have a large unstructured data set, then using MySQL would feel like trying to douse a fire using a garden hose. Too little too late.

The magic of MongoDB is in its ability to handle large unstructured data sets with lightning fast speeds which proves to be a major benefit of using MEAN stack and its components for web development.

2. Express.js for Javascript applications development

The backend of any web application is where the real magic happens and if you have a complicated backend, then your application will be equally complicated. One of the major benefits of MEAN stack and its components is that it uses Express.js for handling its backend.

If you are looking for a perfect balance between ease-of-use and a full feature set, then Express.js is your answer.

The main task of Express.js is to ensure a smooth data transfer to the end user by managing the interactions between the frontend and the database.

Use Express.js because

• It is a minimalist designed to handle the processes of your application without overburdening it.  
• Express.js is an excellent error handler which provides easy templates to speed up your development.
• Express.js saves time by ensuring that you do not redefine a variable.
• It allows you to scale your application quickly as you can add nodes and extra resources to Express.js easily.
• Powered by Google’s V8 engine, Express.js gives you a better performance without any lag or error.
• Express.js supports the caching feature, hence you do not need to re-execute the codes time and again helping to reduce the loading time of your web pages.

3. Angular.js for front end development

2010 was the year when Angular.js was launched and since then it has remained one of the most popular frontend JavaScript frameworks. Angular.js is one of the major benefits of using MEAN stack and its components for your development, let’s see how.

Why go for Angular.js?

• Modular structure of Angular.js allows you to segregate the entire application into exclusive features and identify the reusable chunks of code. 
• Lazy loading feature of Angular.js allows the users to instantly see and use the features of your application.
• The component based architecture of Angular.js ensures that your new developers won't find it hard to understand the application code.
• CLI(command line interface) of Angular.js simplifies the app development process and enhancing the code quality
• The dependency injection function in Angular.js boosts the application performance and makes the development process fast.
• The Ivy renderer minimises the size of the bundle and that of the Angular.js framework making it lighter.
• Typescript allows the developers to spot and correct errors on the go apart from ensuring a higher security of the application
• Using the declarative view function, your developers will save a lot of time and effort as it automatically loads the components as per the layout.
• The Angular.js universal service helps in improving your performance and makes your web application more appealing and easy to use for your users.

4. Node.js for back end development

If you are looking for an efficient cloud based application that can effortlessly scale up the incoming requests on demand, then you are in luck with MEAN stack.

This is because the final letter in MEAN stack is Node.js, which is an open source JavaScript framework using asynchronous events to process multiple connections simultaneously.

This feature of Node.js helps the framework to use a single thread architecture, providing a smooth user experience across multiple connections and proving to be a major benefit of using MEAN stack and its components for your web project. 

There are many benefits of MEAN stack and its components, this specific ones pertaining to Node.js are underlined below

• Node.js helps in making the time to market cycle short.
• With Node.js you get immediate feedback from the production environment making deployment simple.
• Node.js allows better scalability.
• It eliminates the necessity to switch between backend and frontend.
• Node.js is a well tested and mature tool with a huge developer support community.
• MVP development is easy and quick with Node.js.
• It does not have a steep learning curve and hence anyone knowing JavaScript and object oriented programming basics can master Node.js.

Benefits of using MEAN stack for web application development

Listed below are a few major benefits that MEAN stack and its components provide

Economical

Mean stack developers can complete the project all by themselves and you do not need to hire separate developers for frontend and backend and database management. This reduces the headcount, inturn reducing the cost of building a web app. MEAN stack is a combination of open source technologies, which helps in keeping the costs to a minimum.

JavaScript

Mean stack uses JavaScript throughout the code. As the client and server side language is the same in MEAN stack, there are less hiccups in the process. Angular.js allows the developers to reuse the code making the process smoother.

Active community

JavaScript is one of the most common programming languages, meaning that it has an active developer community which provides solutions to day to day problems faced by JavaScript developers. Hence, if you are stuck up, then you can count on the JavaScript community to provide you a solution.

Flexible

MEAN stack allows the developers a high level of flexibility as it is easy to switch between codes. For instance, if you started coding in Node.js but found in the due course of time that Angular.js would have been a better option, then you can easily switch between the two languages without adding any complications to your project. 

Easy testing

MEAN stack and its components have the benefit of allowing you to test an application on the cloud platform easily. MEAN stack also allows you to add that extra bit of information as MongoDB is specifically designed for this purpose, providing full cluster support and automatic replication in the cloud.

High speed

Due to the virtue of its non blocking architecture, MEAN stack is a speedy framework. Angular.js accords reusability of metastability and easy maintenance to MEAN stack.

Wrap up

MEAN stack offers numerous benefits to developers and businesses, including faster development time, improved productivity, and cost-effectiveness. With its powerful components and active developer community, it continues to be a preferred choice for building modern and scalable web applications.