I'm quite surprised to see Javascript / Node so high up the ranks, quite impressive the amount of optimizations that's been done to the engine throughout the years.
We recently finished our first node backend (typescript) and I have to say it was an amazing experience. The npm ecosystem definitely attracts its fair share of undesirables, but I struggle to see why JS full stack isn’t the default for 99% of people.
Lots of people are sure their stack provides an amazing experience, for example I don't get why you would choose node over rails.
As for the performance: looks good for js, but quite a memory hog or am I missing something?
I'm not expert in Ruby, but I'd say there's definitely a few wins in typescript (types, performance, async). But the biggest wins have nothing to do with language differences, but rather not having to worry about that because you're using one language. If teams are large and split between api and frontend, then perhaps less of an issue. But if you're doing anything fullstack, to be able to use one language, everywhere with mostly the same ecosystem...well it's kind of what Java wanted to be.
And I say this coming from a python/django background. And ORM is one big thing that Rails/Django definitely are clear leaders in.
I like the one language thing. I think it's overrated a bit (most syntax mistakes I make are caught by linters) but it's nice.
However, it's still js. Lots of warts still. Also - for a normal web app I really don't see how async is a plus. I don't like promises or async that much, especially with so much db access - why would i want everything to go to an event loop?
It's a never ending discussion, I think all of these stacks are "good enough" to get the job done, a lot of it is how your brain ticks and what you're experienced with...
If all you are doing is writing API then you already don't need 50% of what Rails provides. If you are not into ORMs then you don't really need anything Rails provides at all.
