What is AdonisJS?

Introduction

If you have ever developed a Node.js application using express, you’ll agree with me that it involves a lot of setup hassle. You have to install a lot of necessary dependencies and build your own authentication system every time. I know many developers who have longed for a more opinionated framework that relieves them of the stress of handling most things themselves. This is where a framework like Adonis.js comes in.

Adonis.js gives you the ability to develop full-stack applications and APIs with little setup. Most things an application needs are supported out of the box. Adonis also gives developers a lot of special libraries for additional dependencies such as mail. We will be using Adonis v4.1 in this course.

Prerequisites

1. Beginner to intermediate knowledge in JavaScript and Nodejs
2. A Basic understanding of REST APIs
3. Familiarity with back-end development

Here is a refresher on NodeJS and REST APIs

What is AdonisJS?

Adonis.js is a Node.js MVC framework that simplifies the process of building web applications and APIs. Because it is an MVC framework, it is simple to the core. It gets credit over Express.js because it adds other dependencies in a simple way.

Because all dependencies follow similar architecture, your application code will be homogenous. This solves a lot of headache in learning a different API for your codebase.

AdonisJS supports the following out of the box (not an exhaustive list)

1. Authentication
2. Mail
3. Routing
4. Redis
5. Different Relational databases (Postgres, MySQL, SQLite)

In the next lesson, we will look into the app we will build in this course.