What is MERN?

MERN (Mongo, Express, react and NodeJs) is the new alternate of the MOST popular javascript based web development stack MEAN (Mongo, Express, Angular and NodeJs).

MERN is a set of Open Source Components that together, provide an end-to-end framework for building dynamic web applications; starting from the top (code running in the browser) to the bottom (database). The stack is made up of:

React: Front-end web app javascript library, runs your JavaScript code in the user’s browser, allowing your application UI to be dynamic, making your changes to be based on the states of the component. It has one way flow of data. Makes it easier for you to create progressive web app.

Express: Back-end web application framework running on top of Node.js. Allowing the creation of backend in a very hastle free manner. has its own templeting engine, making it very easier to create html templates for your application.

Node.js : JavaScript runtime environment – lets you implement your application back-end in JavaScript. It allows compilation of javascript on the backend or server side compilation of javascript. Has the ability to add packages using npm (NodeJs Package Manager). Most general mistake “NodeJs is a easy to learn language”. Its not a language, its a runtime or basically a javascript compilation runtime enviroment.

MongoDB : Document database – used by your back-end application to store its data as JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) documents. These documents can be fetched, updated or new documents cann be created by making queries on the database. It support all the CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete oprations). Its a no-sql database.