MERN Stack Explanation
Before understanding MERN stack, let’s quickly understand Technology Stack. A Technology Stack is a set of technologies you choose and use to build a web application, mobile application or similar applications. A typical tech stack contains a frontend, backend and database and is known as a full technology stack.
The basic front-end or user interface technologies remain the same, i.e., HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
What is the MERN stack ?
A technology stack can be custom or pre-built. MERN is a pre-built technology stack based on JavaScript technologies. MERN stands for MongoDB, Express, React, and Node, after the four key technologies that make up the stack. Express and Node make up the middle (application) tier. Express.js is a server-side web framework, and Node.js is the popular and powerful JavaScript server platform. Regardless of which variant you choose, ME(RVA)N is the ideal approach to working with JavaScript and JSON, all the way through.
When to choose the MERN stack ?
MERN stack is an ideal choice, that would save time and cost, and help developers get onboard quickly, as they have to focus on learning only one technology. Also, long-term maintenance of a project could be easier with MERN stack due to structured, well-established approach and extensive documentation.
MERN stack works well for any possible use case or project requirement that you have, as all of the components (MERN) offer powerful capabilities and features. The only time when you cannot choose MERN stack is when you want to use technologies other than JavaScript.
Why choose the MERN stack?
MongoDB was designed to store JSON data natively. Everything from its command line interface to its query language is built on JSON and JavaScript.
MongoDB works extremely well with Node.js, and makes storing, manipulating, and representing JSON data at every tier of your application incredibly easy.
Express.js (running on Node.js) and React.js make the JavaScript/JSON application MERN full stack, well, full. Express.js is a server-side application framework that wraps HTTP requests and responses and makes it easy to map URLs to server-side functions. React.js is a front-end JavaScript framework for building interactive user interfaces in HTML and communicating with a remote server.
The combination means that JSON data flows naturally from front to back, making it easier to build on and reasonably simple to debug. Plus, you only have to know one programming language, and the JSON document structure, to understand the whole system!
MERN is the stack of choice for today’s web developers looking to move quickly, particularly for those with React.js experience.
MERN use cases :
Like any web stack, you can build whatever you want in MERN — though it’s ideally suited for cases that are JSON-heavy, cloud-native, and that have dynamic web interfaces. Examples include workflow management, news aggregation, to-do apps and calendars, and interactive forums or social products — and whatever else you can dream up!
How does the MERN stack work ?
The MERN allows you to easily construct a three-tier architecture (front end, back end, database) entirely using JavaScript and JSON.
React.js front end : – The top tier of the MERN stack is React.js, the declarative JavaScript framework for creating dynamic client-side applications in HTML. React lets you build complex interfaces through simple components, connect them to data on your back-end server, and render them as HTML.
Express.js and Node.js server tier : – The next level down is the Express.js server-side framework, running inside a Node.js server. Express.js bills itself as a “fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js,” and that is indeed exactly what it is. Express.js has powerful models for URL routing (matching an incoming URL with a server function), and handling HTTP requests and responses.
MongoDB database tier : – If your application stores any data (user profiles, content, comments, uploads, events, etc.), then you’re going to want a database that’s just as easy to work with as React, Express, and Node.js
Source : MongoDB MERN Stack Explanation Blog