Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Stylus VS Node.js

Compare Stylus VS Node.js and see what are their differences

Stylus logo Stylus

EXPRESSIVE, DYNAMIC, ROBUST CSS

Node.js logo Node.js

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications
  • Stylus Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-20

Stylus is a revolutionary new language, providing an efficient, dynamic, and expressive way to generate CSS. Supporting both an indented syntax and regular CSS style.

  • Node.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-18

Stylus features and specs

  • Simplified Syntax
    Stylus provides an optional semicolon-free and curly-brace-free syntax, making the code cleaner and easier to write.
  • Extensive Feature Set
    Stylus offers a wide range of features like mixins, nesting, variables, functions, and built-in functions, which increase its flexibility and power.
  • Preprocessor Enhancements
    Stylus includes advanced features that are not available in CSS alone, such as mathematical operations, conditionals, and loops, which can make stylesheets more dynamic and maintainable.
  • JavaScript Interoperability
    Stylus allows embedding of JavaScript expressions and logic directly within the stylesheets, providing developers with additional functionality and control.

Possible disadvantages of Stylus

  • Learning Curve
    The flexibility and multitude of features in Stylus can introduce complexity, making it harder for beginners to grasp quickly compared to more straightforward CSS preprocessors.
  • Less Popularity
    Stylus is less popular than other preprocessors like Sass or LESS, which might result in fewer learning resources, community support, and third-party tools.
  • Potential for Overuse
    The advanced features could lead developers to overuse them, resulting in overly complex code that is difficult to maintain and understand.
  • Build Tool Dependencies
    Integration of Stylus into a project generally requires additional build tools and configurations, which can add to the setup and maintenance overhead.

Node.js features and specs

  • Asynchronous and Event-Driven
    Node.js uses an asynchronous, non-blocking, and event-driven I/O model, making it efficient and scalable for handling multiple simultaneous connections.
  • JavaScript Everywhere
    Developers can use JavaScript for both client-side and server-side programming, providing a unified language environment and better synergy between front-end and back-end development.
  • Large Community and NPM
    Node.js has a vibrant community and a rich ecosystem with the Node Package Manager (NPM), which offers thousands of open-source libraries and tools that can be integrated easily into projects.
  • High Performance
    Built on the V8 JavaScript engine from Google, Node.js translates JavaScript directly into native machine code, which increases performance and speed.
  • Scalability
    Designed with microservices and scalability in mind, Node.js enables easy horizontal scaling across multiple servers.
  • JSON Support
    Node.js seamlessly handles JSON, which is a common format for API responses, making it an excellent choice for building RESTful APIs and data-intensive real-time applications.

Possible disadvantages of Node.js

  • Callback Hell
    The reliance on callbacks to manage asynchronous operations can lead to deeply nested and difficult-to-read code, commonly referred to as 'Callback Hell'.
  • Not Suitable for CPU-Intensive Tasks
    Node.js is optimized for I/O operations and can become inefficient for CPU-intensive tasks, slowing down overall performance due to its single-threaded event loop.
  • Immaturity of Tools
    Compared to more established technologies, some Node.js libraries and tools still lack maturity and comprehensive documentation, which can be challenging for developers.
  • Callback and Promise Overheads
    Managing asynchronous operations using callbacks or promises can lead to additional complexity and overhead, impacting maintainability and performance if not handled correctly.
  • Fragmented Ecosystem
    The fast-paced evolution of Node.js and its ecosystem can lead to fragmentation, with numerous versions and libraries that may not always be compatible with each other.
  • Security Issues
    The extensive use of third-party libraries via NPM can introduce security vulnerabilities if not properly managed and updated, making applications more susceptible to attacks.

Stylus videos

Best stylus for iPhone! Don't waste your money!

More videos:

  • Review - What is the best iPad stylus?
  • Review - Review: MEKO 2-in-1 Stylus (2nd Gen)

Node.js videos

What is Node.js? | Mosh

More videos:

  • Review - What is Node.js Exactly? - a beginners introduction to Nodejs
  • Review - Learn node.js in 2020 - A review of best node.js courses

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Stylus and Node.js)
Developer Tools
6 6%
94% 94
Browser Extension
100 100%
0% 0
Runtime
0 0%
100% 100
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Stylus and Node.js. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Stylus and Node.js

Stylus Reviews

112 Best Chrome Extensions You Should Try (2021 List)
Stylus offers functionality to install and write themes. It is an open-source community-driven extension that makes it much better than its counterparts. Using Stylus, you can install themes from popular repositories, backup your installed styles, and much more. Watch the above video to learn more about Stylus.

Node.js Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
JavaScript is widely used for back-end or server-side development because it makes a call to the remote server when a web page loads on the browser. When a browser loads a web page, it makes a call to a remote server. Further, the code parses the page’s URL to understand users’ requirements before retrieving and transforming the required data to serve back to the browser....
Source: solguruz.com
9 Best JavaScript Frameworks to Use in 2023
Node.js applications are written in JavaScript and run on the Node.js runtime, which allows them to be executed on any platform that supports Node.js. Node.js applications are typically event-driven and single-threaded, making them efficient and scalable. Additionally, the Node Package Manager (NPM) provides a way to install and manage dependencies for Node.js projects...
Source: ninetailed.io
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
TJ Holowaychuk built Express in 2010 before being acquired by IBM (StrongLoop) in 2015. Node.js Foundation currently maintains it. The key reason Express is one of the best JavaScript frameworks is its rapid server-side coding. Complex tasks that would take hours to code using pure Node.js can be resolved in a few minutes, thanks to Express. On top of that, Express offers a...
FOSS | Top 15 Web Servers 2021
Node.js is a cross-platform server-side JavaScript environment built for developing and running network applications such as web servers. Node.js is licensed under a variety of licenses. As of March 2021, around 1.2% of applications were running on Node.js. Among the top companies and applications utilizing this modern web server are GoDaddy, Microsoft, General Electric,...
Source: www.zentao.pm
10 Best Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps 
Electron.js is compatible with a variety of frameworks, libraries, access to hardware-level APIs and chromium engine, and Node.js support. Electron Fiddle feature is great for experimentation as it allows developers to play around with concepts and templates. Simplification is at the center of Electron because developers don’t have to spend unnecessary time on the packaging,...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Node.js seems to be a lot more popular than Stylus. While we know about 897 links to Node.js, we've tracked only 14 mentions of Stylus. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Stylus mentions (14)

  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    Stylus: Provides a more efficient and elegant way to generate CSS. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • 33 front-end development tools developers use in 2024
    Sass, Less and Stylus, extends CSS by adding variables, nesting mixins, and other features. It's an excellent solution for organizing huge and complex stylesheets. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • BEM Modifiers in Pure CSS Nesting
    I hate preprocessors. Be it SASS, SCSS, LESS, Stylus, or any other. Really, without any exceptions. Though, I think my hatred for preprocessors is not because of the technology itself, but because of how other people use them. Throughout my development career, I have often encountered tickets where a seemingly simple task, like changing the text size, which should take minutes, ended up taking me hours. This is... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Future of CSS: Functions and Mixins
    Traditionally CSS lacked features such as variables, nesting, mixins, and functions. This was frustrating for Developers as it often led to CSS quickly becoming complex and cumbersome. In an attempt to make code easier and less repetitive CSS pre-processors were born. You would write CSS in the format the pre-processor understood and, at build time, you'd have some nice CSS. The most common pre-processors these... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Quick Guide To CSS Preprocessors
    The Stylus is built on Node.js. It differs from Sass and Less, which are more opinionated to the syntax; the stylus allows you to omit semicolons, colons, and braces if you want at any time. Another cool feature is that the stylus has a property lookup feature. You can do that easily if you set property X relative to property Y's value. The stylus can be more concise because of its flexibility, but it depends on... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

Node.js mentions (897)

  • Using NanoAPI on Game Mods
    Napi works out of the box on both mac and Linux systems. To use this tool on Windows, you will need to install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and run the CLI commands from there. Make sure that Node.js (>=22) and npm are installed https://nodejs.org/en. Then the command we run is npm install -g @nanoapi.io/napi. - Source: dev.to / 11 days ago
  • Setting up the Pinecone MCP server in your IDE
    Node.js installed with npm and npx on your path. - Source: dev.to / 26 days ago
  • Go for Node developers: creating an IDP from scratch - Set-up
    Nowadays, due to performance constraints a lot of companies are moving away from NodeJS to Go for their network and API stacks. This series is for developers interest in making the jump from Node.js to Go. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Verifying Cognito access tokens - Comparing three JWT packages for Lambda authorizers
    This article compares three JWT packages designed for Node.js and TypeScript. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • UmiJS: the Shaolin of web frameworks
    The code for the described project can be found here. Umi suggests (and supports) quite a bunch of build tools and package managers, but the default one is pnpm, for which you'll need to have Node.js v18+ installed. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Stylus and Node.js, you can also consider the following products

Sass - Syntatically Awesome Style Sheets

ExpressJS - Sinatra inspired web development framework for node.js -- insanely fast, flexible, and simple

Dark Reader - Reduce eye strain in your browser with this extension that provides a dark theme for browsing.

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

PostCSS - Increase code readability. Add vendor prefixes to CSS rules using values from Can I Use. Autoprefixer will use the data based on current browser popularity and property support to apply prefixes for you.

Laravel - A PHP Framework For Web Artisans