Node at LinkedIn: The Pursuit of Thinner, Lighter, Faster

Node.js, the server-side JavaScript-based software platform used to build scalable network applications, has been all the rage among many developers for the past couple of years, although its popularity has also managed to enrage some others, who have unleashed a barrage of negative blog posts to point out its perceived shortcomings. Still, while new and untested, Node continues to win more converts.

In 2011, LinkedIn joined the movement when it opted to rebuild its core mobile services in Node. The professional networking site, which had been relying on Ruby on Rails, was looking for performance and scalability gains. With its pervasive use of non-blocking primitives and a single-threaded event loop, Node seemed promising.