Have you heard before about MEAN, MERN, or MEVN? Besides front-end, back-end, or full-stack developers, there are also more technical engineering skills and types of engineers that can meet different website or mobile app requirements. Thus, and alongside constant market demand changes, it is almost a “must” to be aware of the new trends and advantages that development offers.
In this sense, there is a whole world of possibilities in a JavaScript framework. This results in MEAN, MERN, and MEVN stacks and, therefore, in their respective types of developer tooling. By knowing their basics, similarities, differences, and advantages, you, as the leader of a project, will not only be able to better understand your project needs and market dynamics. But you will also be able to hire the specific web developer that you need.
What Are MEAN, MERN, MEVN Developers and Its Differences?
Rather than representing new frameworks, these are acronyms that encompass a series of technology stacks based on JavaScript frameworks and build applications.
First, you should know what the technology stack is. This is a combination of tools and programming languages that help you to ease the creation of a database, front-end, and back-end for your web or mobile app development. In this sense, a web developer can count on MEAN, MERN, and MEVN stacks.
Deciphering the Similarities
Regarding MEAN, MERN, and MEVN, these mean MongoDB (document database), Express(.js) (Node.js web framework), and Node(.js) (premier JavaScript webserver). The difference then relies on the third letter that we will explain below.
MongoDB is a No-SQL database tool that is used to store application data and helps a developer build full database security and cross-cloud scalability. Engineers can use JSON or JavaScript-based object notation. So MongoDB solves the format issue when it comes to storing tables. They are accessed and related through relational databases.
Following this, Express(.js) runs on a Node.js server that uses URL routing and manages HTTP requests and responses to connect to other services. This framework builds the backend of web applications in a hybrid, single, or multi-page way. As a benefit, Express fasts web and mobile app development eases customization. So you can use them to create a REST API server.
To end the common spelling of the mentioned acronyms, Node(.js) is a front-end JavaScript environment that runs the framework not in a browser, but in a machine with a built-in JavaScript interface. Web developers use it to build data-heavy apps. This given it’s highly flexible, open-source, and provides scalable features for web and mobile app development.
Identifying the Difference
We are now going to decipher the different letters in the text. Regarding MEAN, the letter A represents Angular(.js) (a client-side JavaScript framework). It allows the developer to extend HTML tags based on metadata to build a more dynamic and interactive client-side-based testing process.
In terms of MERN, the letter R implies React(.js) (front-end JavaScript library). This is the most popular library. It’s an open-source one that provides very friendly user interfaces for both web and mobile app development. It is also a fast and easy-to-use tool with highly efficient performance characteristics for beginning a project.
As the last technical term, the letter V in MEVN means Vue(.js) (a client-side JavaScript framework). There is also a two-way data binding that simplifies the front-end and back-end process development. The framework is open-source and easy to work with to integrate new or pre-existing applications. As an additional benefit, you can use it as a jQuery replacement.
As a result, while the JavaScript base environment of MEAN, MERN, and MEVN stack development is the same, the front-end or client-side requires different tools to create a new design interface. These depend on what the developers need based on the project requirements and on what they feel most comfortable with.
Being the leader of the team, you can also make statements on the project board and brief yourself on what to expect from each stack. Further, this will allow you to hire the specific developer that you need.
You might also be interested in our blog post What Your Digital Transformation Strategy Should Look Like.
What Are the Benefits of Working with MEAN, MERN, MEVN Developers?
Before you know what a developer can offer to your project, you should think about the development requirements to identify the specific pros you can count on. Additionally, this will help you choose which of these developers you need to add to your team.
As part of the first stage, you must define your project resources, objectives, goals, scope, and budget to decide how you will distribute the tasks and functions, what team you need, and what level of expertise they should have. In this sense, audience, agility, scalability, flexibility, final cost, knowledge, and experience are key to building the best team for a website or mobile app developer.
Now, having established the specific terms of the project and each type of web developer, we will disclose the management and development pros of working with these three stacks.
PROS of MEAN Developers
A MEAN developer can meet complex development challenges and simplify the process through compatibility and system administration tools from the back-end to the front-end. While MEAN provides a full-stack application building process, it also prioritizes the organization of the processes. These are useful for a long list of feature requirements and avoid major groundwork for a large number of applications.
This engineer will rely on an extensive tool testing suite for creating more intuitive experiences across highly demanding API and microservices in HTML builds. This framework will provide great stability for the coding and managing of the platform.
The open-source and single programming language schemes that MEAN manages will also save time on adaptations to different websites and mobile app architectures. Additionally, it is highly recommended to count on a MEAN developer for more customized projects based on JavaScript and JSON.
PROS of MERN Developers
A MERN developer will work with the entire JavaScript and JSON structure of the database, server, and application. Thus, MERN is a full-stack solution for developing a whole website or mobile app.
This type of engineering can be useful for manipulating and storing JSON data. If you want to launch a cloud-native application, your project will have to be scalable in this sense. The eastern functioning of the HTTP requests and responses and the URLs mapped on the server-side will provide interactive user interfaces in HTML.
The JSON data flow usage allows for faster building and simpler debugging. So the developer only has to use one programming language and not change it across different architecture levels. A MERN developer will then offer you a quick code development experience.
We recommend you the MERN stack for JSON-heavy applications. In the long-term, this type of development will provide a more adaptable and agile culture to your business. This given it has an open-source scheme that can be extended by a community.
PROS of MEVN Developers
The MEVN developers work on the back-end and front-end with a simple two-way integration and communication system. The MEVN combination provides highly organized and separate testing tools that are integrated into the structure of the framework. This saves time.
As MEVN manages JavaScript-compatible languages and has an MVVM (model-view-ViewModel) that handles HTML blocks, it offers flexibility and speed when it comes to building or modifying a website or mobile app. In addition, the MEVN developer enables a user interface (UI) with additional utilities.
Although MEVN has an open-source scheme to work with, it is the least used of the three described options. This given its recent launch. Thus, a larger collaborative community has yet to build out all the features and their scope.
Full-Stack Developers Vs. MEAN, MERN, MEVN Developers
Aside from their minimal differences, these engineers aren’t the same as full-stack ones when they build the entire application architecture from top to bottom. The project responsibilities also change slightly, so you must know exactly what you require.
The full-stack web developer will focus on ensuring cross-platform optimization as well as designing and developing APIs. As a result, the will meet both technical and consumer needs for the platform and its users. In contrast, MEAN, MERN, and MEVN developers have focused on designing and maintaining complex relational and non-relational databases. They also can identify production and non-production application issues and integrate development environment tools and software into the development environment. The first is based on the final product while the second involves engineers working on scalable products.
Why Do You Need to Hire MEAN, MERN MEVN Developers?
From simple to complex application architectures to web and mobile apps, a series of component combinations based on JavaScript makes it easy to step-by-step build your project and increases its scalability.
Think about which scheme you can introduce to your project: MEAN, MERN, and MEVN allow the developer to succeed on social products, interactive forums, calendars, and workflow management, among other applications mentioned by MongoDB (2021).
These frameworks also have in common the MongoDB Atlas. This is a database for multi-cloud document building, encryption, and authentication that enhances the security features and scalability of the project. These aspects are vital to current market demand. But more importantly, are part of the trends for the coming years. The aforementioned focus on microservices, automatized processes, e-commerce, cloud-data storage, and cybersecurity is a key component of the company’s strategy.
According to Ncube (2020), progressive web application (PWA) is a hybrid approach to develop adaptable products for websites and mobile apps, Internet of Things (IoT) to connect and perform intelligence tasks, big data to process, analyze, and develop more assertive and customized developments are also trends to take into account.
In terms of MVC (model-view-controller) design, these types of web developers will provide a supported architecture with available coding and upgrading that is constantly evolving. That allows for even larger enterprise-level and e-commerce projects by organizing different architecture tiers and creating prototypes.
On the side of the user interface, MEAN, MERN, and MEVN developers can easily manage data changes and customize websites and mobile apps to deliver microservices or niche projects through customized apps. They are then capable of using UI components to render any development and improve user interaction.
What You Should also Consider to Hire Developers
As we saw, all of these tool combinations can provide you maximum scalable and flexible performance and, in lesser measure, porting and migration. This is mandatory if you want to build long-term apps. Even when there are a lot of variables to be aware of, some of these implementations will represent lower costs than regular approaches. So they will be affordable for small businesses. The hook to be successful and adapt and take advantage of market trends is to implement a combination of elements. These also represent solutions in terms of project budget, scalability, and team skills.
It is important that you be aware of the hiring process. This is not the same thing for full-stack developers as it is for MEAN, MERN, and MEVN developers. While the four types of engineers extend their talent in building a single piece of architecture, the type we have described here is less expensive. According to a Ncube article (2019), that also describes the differences between these engineers, the average salary of a full-stack developer is around $82,600 compared to the average salary of $71,628 from a MEAN engineer.
Otherwise, both in the hiring and implementation of trends to boost the project, having an accurate approach will be vital for the prosecution and success of the development. From management consulting to development expertise, you can count on Advancio to start your project or bring it to fruition once it’s started.
If you want to hire a Back-End Developer that works alongside MEAN, MERN, and MEVN tools, we will also help you. We can find you the engineer or the whole development team that best suits your project requirements.