gRPC Microservices: When Protobuf Beats JSON for Internal APIs
Learn how gRPC and protobuf work, when they beat JSON over REST for internal services, the operational trade-offs, and a framework for choosing between them.
14 min read
Category
Backend Engineering
Runtimes, frameworks and API styles: Node.js, Bun, NestJS, Spring Boot, Python, REST, GraphQL and gRPC.
Node.js Event Loop for Backend Engineers: Latency, Not Diagrams
How the Node.js event loop and libuv threadpool work, how blocking shows up as p99 latency, how to measure it, and when to use workers or processes.
13 min read
NestJS Architecture: Modules, Providers and Dependency Injection
Learn how NestJS architecture works as a module-scoped DI container: providers, tokens, scopes, dynamic modules, circular dependencies and testable layouts.
14 min read
Fastify vs Express: Choosing a Node.js Web Framework in Practice
Compare Fastify vs Express by architecture: request lifecycle, schema validation, plugins vs Express middleware, error handling, cost and migration.
14 min read
Zero Downtime Database Migrations with Expand and Contract
Learn how expand and contract keeps schema migrations backward compatible during rolling deploys, with PostgreSQL lock, backfill and rollback techniques.
13 min read
OpenAPI Contract First: Designing APIs Before Writing Code
Treat your OpenAPI description as a reviewed, versioned contract: design it first, generate types, and use CI and contract tests to stop drift.
15 min read
gRPC vs REST vs GraphQL: Choosing an API Style per Boundary
Pick gRPC, REST, or GraphQL per boundary, not per company: how each works, where each breaks, error models, and a checklist for internal vs public APIs.
13 min read
Bun vs Node.js for Servers: Compatibility, Speed and Migration
Compare Bun vs Node.js for server workloads: engine differences, compatibility risks, honest benchmarking, operations tooling and a staged migration plan.
16 min read
Bun Backend Development: What It Is and When to Use It
Learn how the Bun runtime works, how bun vs node compares on the backend, and how to adopt Bun step by step: tooling first, then the runtime.
13 min read
NestJS Microservices: Transports, Message Patterns and Hybrid Apps
Build NestJS microservices: pick a transport, design message contracts, use send() vs emit(), handle errors and retries, and run hybrid HTTP apps.
14 min read
GraphQL vs REST: Trade-offs for Real Backend Projects
Compare GraphQL vs REST on data modeling, over-fetching, caching, N+1, security and versioning, with a decision framework for backend teams.
13 min read
Environment Variables in Backend Apps: Validate Early, Fail Fast
Learn how backend apps should load environment variables once, validate them into a typed config object, and fail fast at startup with clear errors.
14 min read