Hapi Vs Express

Erminio Mendes

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Sep 17, 2021

3 min read

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Do you want to create a web application, right?
For to do that you need tools to help to build your structure, we have many options, however, I want to keep the focus on two frameworks, Hapi and Express, wait… what is a framework?

Framework

A web development framework is a set of resources and tools for software developers to build and manage web applications. The frameworks take care of commonly used complex functions like server-client communication, so you don’t have to devote a lot of time and resources to code everything manually.
Let me talk about Hapi first.

Hapi

Hapi itself contains methods for form data processing, JSON parsing, error handling, cookie setting, and much more. Making it theoretically more capable “out of the box”.

But what happens if you need functionality other than what Hapi offers by default? Well, while Express uses middleware to extend Node’s request/response objects, Hapi uses a wide collection of Hapi-specific “plug-ins”. Generally the same concept, but there is a much smaller library to choose from.

Express

Express .js is a minimal and flexible Node.js framework that provides a powerful set of features for web and mobile apps. Many beginners are more comfortable with Express because it is so simple and favors a design pattern similar to developing a Node.js app. Also, Express is the most popular framework, and as a result, there is a lot of documentation and other resources available online to help junior developers quickly understand the pros and cons.

All endpoints must be created manually in Express, which can be time-consuming, and as your codebase grows in size, refactoring can become a challenge. The organization needs to be very clear to avoid problems with maintaining the code.

Express requires a middleware to do many common things like parsing JSON files (body-parser), make use of cookies (cookie parser), error handling, and much more. Fortunately, there is plenty of middleware out there to choose from.

Popularity

Popularity is an important aspect we must search about, the reason is simple, we won’t choose some framework not give decent support and community of it

We can see, ExpressJS Framework is the most popular. This is also because some popular NodeJS frameworks like hapiJS and loopbackJS are built on top of the ExpressJS Framework.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for something standard, simple and stable with lots of support and a generally easier learning curve, Express is a good choice. If you have larger, more complex applications that need to be scaled and understood by large teams, then Hapi may be superior.

References
https://nimapinfotech.com/blog/hapi-vs-express/2 https://www.systango.com/blog/hapi-vs-express-vs-koa/3 https://medium.com/@mklum88/is-express-the-best-option-c5990ac9232e4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_framework