The software development process requires a set of technologies and tools to build, test, and deploy applications and websites.
This toolset is also known as a technology stack that consists of platforms, programming languages, frameworks and libraries, and more. Hundreds and thousands of new sites and apps are developed and used every day. And the demand for web app development is increasing as well as the usage of technology stacks.
That said, MEAN is a technology stack getting popular these days and trusted by lots of developers worldwide to build websites and applications.
This article will talk about MEAN Stack, its benefits, and the best platforms for hosting it.
Let’s jump in!
What is MEAN Stack?
MEAN is an open-source JavaScript-based technology stack used for developing dynamic web applications and sites.
It stands for:
- M – MongoDB
- E – Express.js
- A – Angular
- N – Node.js
You see, the MEAN stack is actually a set of these tools that are grouped to execute specific functions during software development. Supporting all JavaScript programs, MEAN applications utilize one programming language for both client-side and server-side environments, which is a fair advantage.
- MongoDB is a cross-platform database to store information of any size without interrupting the stack.
- Express.js handles back-end development for your MEAN stack app. This framework offers higher security and speed for web apps and helps simplify the development process.
- Angular is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks to develop software and is built by Google. It offers many useful modules, awesome features such as 2-way data binding, and more.
- Node.js is a server-side JS framework that helps you build scalable software applications with incredibly fast performance.
How does it work?
The architecture of the MEAN stack consists of the above-mentioned components. Let’s find out how they work typically inside the MEAN-stack-based software development.
- When a client requests the software, it hits the client-side framework of Angular.
- The request passes to Node.js from Angular as Node.js is the back-end platform. It then reaches Express.js.
- Next, Express.js lets the request reach the MongoDB database
- MongoDB accepts the request and then sends its response back to Express.js
- Lastly, the request (with the response) comes back to Node.js from Express.js and then to Angular and reaches the user.
Why is MEAN Stack Trending?
Building and maintaining web applications is not easy.
But to simplify these processes, the MEAN stack offers a productive solution to create robust, responsive, and maintainable applications by utilizing a powerful tech stack.
There are many reasons why people are opting for it:
- MEAN stack applications exhibit higher performance as all four tools are powerful for building, testing, code reusability, data storage, and deployment.
- It aims to free you from the hassles of working with multiple web frameworks and integrating them. Plus, the chances of you committing mistakes also reduce, and it makes everything better organized.
- MEAN stack offers higher scalability so you can grow your business rapidly and serve thousands of users across the world with blazing-fast services.
- You don’t have to get overwhelmed with different programming languages. Only JavaScript is enough as it works in both front and back-end development. Therefore, it saves time and simplifies the processes.
- MEAN Stack offers greater flexibility in building software from a single application to enterprise-grade apps. This flexibility is useful during the testing phase as well.
The popularity of MEAN Stack is rising, and even big applications like YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, Forbes, Instagram, Paytm, NetFlix, etc., are using Node.js and Angular somewhere within applications.
If you are a MEAN stack developer or company incorporating MEAN Stack development, go for a reliable hosting platform to host MEAN applications instead of doing everything by yourself to simplify the process and reap the benefits explained above.
AccuWebHosting
Looking for an economic MEAN Stack hosting service?
AccuWebHosting is an excellent option for you!
They offer a crucial combination of greater scalability and iron-clad security. And their dedicated support is also there to help you all the time if any issue occurs, allowing you to focus on growing your business and spending less time worrying.
AccuWebHosting’s fully managed hosting service offers pure RAID-6 SSD drives on a Linux Platform to provide you with greater performance and storage along with lower power consumption to offer an environment-friendly setup.
They provide each of their Linux servers with high-performance Dual Xeon E5/E7 servers and DDR3 RAM/256 GB ECC. Besides, they offer SolusVM/Xen-based virtualization, CSF firewalls over every VPS node, and the option for multiple add-ons.
Their HyperV Server nodes run universally with a 1 Gbps connection to power all your MEAN.js Stack apps, websites, web development, game servers, and so on. They provide full administrative access using SSH, and you can install and run any personal or custom apps you want to.
AccuWebHosting offers 100% free backups weekly along with unlimited restores. In case you need more backups frequently, you can go for paid CDP backups and let them back up your VPS daily with restores at just $10/month for 20GB data.
You have the option to upgrade your VPS without losing your data or IP address. The hosting service also includes a web-based panel for VPS management to monitor critical system aspects like CPU usage, disk, and memory space. It also lets you take quick actions such as pausing, rebooting, resuming, etc.
Their state-of-the-art data center is located in Denver, USA, and maintained with 24/7 monitoring, multiple internet connections, a fire suppression system, backup power, video surveillance, pass-card entrance, and more secure facilities.
All their plans include common features like pre-configured MEAN Stack set up, free backups, SSH or Root access for unrestricted administration, service and security monitoring, MongoDB, no I/O limits, and unlimited restores.
Their pricing starts from $18/month and includes a 7-day full money-back guarantee.
A2 Hosting
MEAN stack hosting service by A2 Hosting is fine-tuned and blazing-fast to meet all your needs. This developer-friendly service offers top-level performance, security, and controls that are rare to find elsewhere.
A2 Hosting’s screaming-fast SwiftServer platform helps enhance your SEO rankings, bounce rate, and conversion rate. It’s because they host your applications and sites on their speed-optimized servers while giving you the liberty to choose your server location.
A2 Hosting offers 20 times faster Turbo servers and free SSDs. In addition to that, you get AMD EPYC Servers having NVMEe drives that offer 3x faster write/read speeds, 2x faster TTFB, 40% faster CPUs, and 9x more traffic. With full server control, you can add custom apps or install scripts easily that are rarely compatible with other hosts.
They employ industry best practices, maintain high-performing and advanced data centers, and ensure the servers are patched with the latest security. In addition to that, their team always maintains the servers, so they perform at peak levels. As a result of all these, A2 Hosting is capable of committing around 99.9% network uptime.
This hosting service is developer-friendly as they allow you to fully control your environment with root access so you can perform changes to all your server files. You can also choose a Linux and reload the server with a brand new OS in demand. Besides, you can even shutdown, boot, or reboot your server.
Their MEAN Stack hosting plans start from $4.25/month for 1 GB RAM, 150 GB Raid 10 SSD, 1 CPU core, and a money-back guarantee.
Google Cloud
Just hop into GCP Marketplace and go for the MEAN Certified by Bitnami. You can go through their documentation to learn the installation, configuration, and management.
In case you get any issues with the deployment, you can reach out to their support team that will answer your queries within 24 hours of every working day. Bitnami also certifies that their images are up-to-date, secure, and packaged based on industry best practices.
As a result, you can trust your deployments, and they also monitor all the apps they package to ensure there are no vulnerabilities or outdated libraries and components in them. If they identify any issues, they patch and release the affected listing after a few days.
The default configuration system lets you run development environments for Node and MongoDB, but they allow configuration to be customized during deployment.
The pricing is $13.61/month, and there’s a FREE trial option for new GCP customers.
Scalingo
Scalingo makes MEAN stack cloud hosting easy and quick so that you can focus more on your development processes. You don’t need to manage the server or operating system, simply push your NodeJS code and let them handle the rest.
Offering a fully managed, production-ready hosting service, you can trust Scalingo to power all your IoT and web projects. It empowers your teams to handle the whole app life cycle with no admin/ops. They help you deploy, scale, and manage your MEAN Stack without hassles so you can make your site or apps live in a few minutes.
Even without DevOps, instant work and availability make your continuous delivery faster. With Scalingo, you can start with small deployments and then grow big from prototypes to production-grade MEAN infrastructure. It offers high uptime of 99.9% and removes the pain of managing application stacks, servers, databases, and software dependencies.
You can quickly provision a high-performance database of your choice in the cloud and then scale instantly and seamlessly from sandbox to high-memory instances. The database options you have here are MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Redis, and InfluxDB.
Scalingo supports major frameworks, including Java, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, Elixir, etc., and you can extend the functionality with build packs. They offer real-time metrics, logs, and queries for effortless auditing and monitoring, access control permissions, and auto-healing capability from security vulnerabilities.
Connect custom domains and add HTTPS using the automatic and transparent Let’s Encrypt SSL. Perform on-the-go deployments from GitHub, GitLab, and Git and enable Review Apps automatically from Merge/Pull requests.
AWS
Get your Bitnami-certified MEAN stack hosting service from AWS Marketplace. Start building your dynamic web apps and sites with a complete framework configured for quick production environments.
All the software certified by Bitnami is highly secure and up to date, and you can use them right away without difficulties. They follow industry standards in packaging software, monitoring systems continuously, and offering regular application updates.
Launch your Bitnami MEAN stack quickly in the cloud and start adding your codes. The platform offers everything essential to build a modern and scalable web app. They offer a pricing estimation tool to calculate the infrastructure and software costs depending upon your configuration requirements.
Conclusion
MEAN Stack comes with powerful technologies to help you build your software applications faster, provide better flexibility and scalability, and saves your time and cost. But hosting your MEAN app on a lousy platform will degrade the overall application performance; instead, go for any above-listed solutions; the good thing, most of them offer a money-back guarantee, so nothing to lose.
Alternatively, you can get the cloud VM and install the MEAN stack yourself.
