What is the “MERN stack”?

let’s start with understanding what is a technology stack; a tech stack is the combination of technologies used to create a web application. Any web application is usually made using multiple technologies (frameworks, libraries, databases, etc). Also called a solutions stack, technology infrastructure, or a data ecosystem.

Eg, The MERN stack includes four open-source components: MongoDB, Expressjs, Reactjs, and Nodejs. These components provide an end-to-end framework for developers to work in.

So, the MERN stack is basically a type of technology stack. The main advantage for developers using the MERN stack is that every line of code is written in JavaScript. This is a programming language that’s used everywhere, both for client-side code and server-side code. With one language across tiers, there’s no need for context switching. Also, the four robust technologies are feasible enough to develop full-fledged software and applications.

Another popular question is the difference between the MERN & MEAN stack; the MERN stack is an updated version of the MEAN stack, where It uses React.js instead of Angular.js. The main purpose of React is to be fast, scalable, and simple.

MERN is designed to make the development process smoother and easier. Here’s an example of a popular application written in Node.js

Netflix is the world’s leading provider of streaming media and video-on-demand. It’s a data-driven platform that uses a massive amount of A/B testing to build a rich experience for its millions of subscribers worldwide. Great numbers of unique packages every push cycle create a problem of conditional dependencies and app scalability. That’s why the company decided to leverage the lightweight and fast Node.js. One of the most important results of this was a 70-percent reduction in startup time.

MERN stack is a lot more flexible, the development is less time-consuming and as a result, you get fast and reliable software. Here’s another example;

PayPal, a worldwide online payments system, moved its backend development from Java to JavaScript and Node.js. Beforehand, the engineering teams at the company were divided into those who code for the browser and those who code for the application layer, and it didn’t work perfectly. Then, full-stack engineers came to the rescue, but that model wasn’t ideal too. Adopting Node.js solved their problems, as it allowed for writing the browser and the server applications in the same programming language — JavaScript. As a result, the unified team is able to understand problems at both ends and react more effectively to the customer’s needs.