Node.js community chose the best libraries of 2024

Node.js community chose the best libraries of 2024

The annual voting among JavaScript and Node.js developers has concluded: the community has determined the best libraries and frameworks of the outgoing year. More than 20,000 developers from 150 countries took part in the survey. We have gathered the key winners in the main categories that everyone working with the Node.js ecosystem should know about.

Backend: Express remains the leader, but competition is growing

In the server-side frameworks category, Express took the traditional first place (for the 4th year in a row). However, analysts note a sharp rise in the popularity of alternatives:

• Fastify — took 2nd place, surpassing Koa thanks to speed and built-in schema validation.
• NestJS — rose to 3rd position, solidifying its status as the main framework for enterprise applications.
• Hono — newcomer of the year, an ultra-fast framework for Edge computing.

Interestingly, Express's share dropped from 68% to 54%, indicating a diversification of choices among developers.

Frontend: React wins outright

Among frontend frameworks, the gap between React and its competitors has only widened. The winners:

• React — 72% of votes. Main drivers: React Server Components and improved hydration.
• Next.js — best meta-framework on React (81% preference in its niche).
• Solid.js — took 3rd place, surpassing Vue.js in audience growth rate.

Notably, Svelte entered the top 5 for the first time, surpassing Angular.

Databases and ORM: Prisma is the absolute leader

In the category of tools for working with databases, there were no surprises:

• Prisma — best ORM (4th year in a row). 67% of developers noted its TypeScript integration and auto-generation of types.
• Drizzle ORM — rise of the year (from 12th to 2nd place) thanks to its lightness and SQL-like syntax.
• Mongoose — remains the standard for MongoDB (3rd place).

Testing and utilities

The community also highlighted key tools for improving code quality:

• Vitest — recognized as the best testing framework, surpassing Jest in speed and compatibility with Vite.
• Biome — new linter and formatter, replacing ESLint in 23% of projects.
• Zod — best data validation library (340% growth over the year).

Conclusions: what changed in 2024

The main trends of the voting are a shift towards TypeScript-first libraries, the growing popularity of Edge solutions, and a move away from monolithic tools in favor of composite builds. For Node.js developers, this means: Express is still relevant, but it's time to look at Fastify and Hono; Prisma remains the standard, and Vitest is finally displacing Jest.

The full list of nominees and detailed statistics can be viewed on the official survey website. Which library do you use? Share your opinion in the comments to the article.