Choosing the Right Node.js Framework: NestJS vs Hapi

Overview of NestJS and Hapi

NestJS is a framework for creating scalable, efficient, server-side applications with Node.js. It uses progressive JavaScript with TypeScript support and incorporates features of object-oriented programming, functional programming, and functional reactive programming.

Hapi, or HTTP API, is an open-source framework for developing scalable web applications. One of the most basic use cases of Hapi is to build REST APIs.

Comparison of NestJS and Hapi

Performance

Performance is a critical feature of any good framework. NestJS integrates with Node.js and modules like Express and Fastify, quadrupling developers’ productivity and application performance while saving time.

// Example of NestJS and FastifyAdapter "Hello, World!" application
import { FastifyAdapter, NestFactory } from '@nestjs/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';

async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule, new FastifyAdapter());
  await app.listen(3000);
}

bootstrap();

Popularity

Both NestJS and Hapi are popular Node.js frameworks, but NestJS has a slight edge.

• NestJS: over 48,500 stars on GitHub, over 1,400,000 weekly downloads on npm, and 59 package dependents
• Hapi: over 13,900 GitHub stars, 563,000 weekly downloads on npm, and 547 package dependents

Application Architecture

NestJS provides a ready-to-use application architecture known as the Controllers-Providers-Modules that enables developers and teams to build applications that are easy to test and maintain.

// Example of NestJS Controller
import { Controller, Get } from '@nestjs/common';

@Controller('app')
export class AppController {
  @Get()
  root(): string {
    return 'Hello, World!';
  }
}

Scalability

Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system.

NestJS uses scalable HTTP frameworks like Express, which derive from the non-blocking features of Node.js.

// Example of using Express with NestJS
import { ExpressAdapter } from '@nestjs/core';
import express from 'express';

const app = express();

const nestApp = await NestFactory.create(AppModule, new ExpressAdapter(app));

Database Support

NestJS is database agnostic and allows easy integration with any SQL database, including MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Postgres, or any NoSQL database, like MongoDB, DynamoDB, etc.

Nested Routing

NestJS is built to support nested routing by default.

// Example of NestJS nested routing
import { Controller, Get } from '@nestjs/common';

@Controller('users')
export class UsersController {
  @Get(':id')
  getUser(@Param('id') id: string): string {
    return `User ${id}`;
  }

  @Get(':id/orders')
  getUserOrders(@Param('id') id: string): string {
    return `Orders for User ${id}`;
  }
}

Creating a Project

Creating a project with both frameworks is similar. Both NestJS and Hapi have a command-line interface that allows developers to create applications quickly.

# Create a new NestJS project
npx @nestjs/cli new my-nest-project