The MEAN stack is a full-stack JavaScript solution that can be used to build robust and powerful web applications. The acronym stands for MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS and Node.js. It provides a collection of open source technologies with the goal of making it easier to build complex web applications in less time. In this blog post we will go over what each technology does as well as how they work together to provide an end-to-end solution for building web apps!
MEAN Stack Components
Here are the technologies that make up MEAN stack:
- MongoDB is a cross-platform document database which provides both structure and flexibility to help you organize your data in whichever way makes sense for your business. MongoDB stores collections of documents, rather than rows within tables like relational databases do. Documents can contain more complex types such as arrays, dates or geospatial information
- ExpressJS is an open source web application framework built on Node.js with some added features including support for routing URL requests, formatting responses via templates (e.g., Mustache) and managing asynchronous tasks (async/await). It’s designed not only around the idea of “Express middleware” but also REST API design principles.
- AngularJS is an open-source web application framework, maintained by Google and developed with TypeScript. It addresses the two main challenges in single page applications. The first is how to make the web application faster and more responsive by reducing DOM-based render blocking. The second is making it easier for developers who are not skilled in JavaScript or HTML to develop applications with rich, dynamic user interfaces that can interact asynchronously with remote data sources without involving a page reload.
- Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model. Nodes are executed on the server and each Node runs in its own thread of execution (an “event loop”) which handles one request at a time. The node process can therefore support thousands of concurrent connections without blocking any threads or using much system resources aside from those required for housekeeping tasks such as memory management and garbage collection.
