About Meteor.js

Today we’ll start some articles’ chain about stack we are using in our every day’s work. We’ve talked about React already and to continue our narrative, here is an interesting technology which we love here in Soshace.
Please meet Meteor – a full-stack JS framework that was designed for building real-time web and mobile applications. Full-stack – means that it works on a front-end and back-end at the same time. Real-time – means that it takes care of the whole development process – from the application’s creating to a deployment. This framework was built on the top of a popular cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment called – Node.js. We will talk about it later.

Meteor has been built using concepts from the other frameworks and libraries. It makes web development easier by letting you to prototype applications in very balanced and simple way. It’s flexible and requires less code, which means that you will have less bugs and more stable end result. If you have already used it, you’d know what I mean.

If you are not sure about the technology stack for your future project, you should take a closer look on it. Meteor is “easy to learn and quick to build”, this fact makes it really popular in the developers’ community. This framework saves you project delivery time and your budgets too.

Let’s take a look at the Meteor advantages, which we consider important to note.

You can write your applications using pure JavaScript, or CoffeeScript, LiveScript for example. It is important because it shortens an entry threshold for your developers, saves time and makes it easy to switch between front- and back-end tasks. Also, JS is one of the most popular languages nowadays so it will be easier to find the right developer. Even people, who are not actually the developers, like designers, find it’s easy to implement. They love it for the same reasons as our team: it’s easy to learn and to live with. It is “real-time” from scratch and if you are looking for a solution to build a real-time application – Meteor is the perfect choose. All of the application’s layers from template to database update automatically. So you do not need to refresh the page to see implemented updates.
There are a lot of packages that saves your time and your budgets too. For example, you want to add some login system into your application, and it can cause some problems. But with Meteor packages you could simply add features such as:
User accounts;
JS libraries like React;
Bootstrap/Stylus;
Angular features;

e.t.c.

Also, you have some resource where Meteor packages are .

As we told before, you’ll have some built-in front-end solution. You do not need to use frameworks such as Angular, Ember or something else. But if you need, you can add some. We used it with React and it worked perfectly. Also you can add Angular to it.
You can turn your Meteor application into iOS and Android App. Meteor gives you an opportunity to turn your web application into a smartphone app using Cordova, for example. We would recommend to use Cordova for making some simple apps and creating prototypes for further development on the other platforms.

We should mark that Meteor community is extremely responsive, because most of its members think that Meteor it’s the coolest stuff in the World (and maybe, they are not far from truth).

Summarizing all the advantages, that we have found during the last 2 years that we have been using Meteor for applications’ development we can say that this framework is mostly comfortable and exciting for developers. But if you look on it from the other side – it is perspectively and profitable for stakeholders to build their new project using Meteor, because it saves time, and it means, that it saves money.

You, as a stakeholder, company CEO, project manager would have two important advantages – you’ll make some comfortable and interesting environment for your developers on the project if you’ll decide to use Meteor, and also you’ll save your budget.
In the end of development this would be a modern/ high-performance app with big developer’s community to support it.

In our Team we have all the necessary experience to build any complex and good-looking app using Meteor. You’ll always can expect quick response from us and well-built cooperation process. So do not hesitate to contact us and you won’t be disappointed!