Search⌘ K
AI Features
Home
Courses
Learn Express.js

Express Router and Modular Routing

Explore how to organize your Express.js routes using express.Router() to create modular, maintainable, and scalable back-end applications. Understand mounting routers, applying middleware at the route level, and best practices for clean code structure in growing apps.

We'll cover the following...

As Express applications grow, defining all routes in a single file (e.g., server.js) becomes unmanageable. A monolithic structure results in messy, hard-to-debug code, making scaling difficult. To improve maintainability, a well-structured application should use modular routes, organizing related routes into separate files.

Express provides express.Router(), a built-in feature for creating modular route handlers. This improves:

  • Code organization: Each module handles only its relevant routes.

  • Maintainability: It is easier to debug and extend.

  • Reusability: Routes can be packaged into standalone modules.

Using Express router for modular routes

Express allows us to create modular routes using express.Router(), which returns a new instance of the Router class. This instance allows us to define routes and middleware separately before integrating them into the main Express application, ensuring a more modular and organized structure. The following example demonstrates a modular route file (users.js) that defines routes independently, which can later be integrated into ...

Node.js
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
// Define a route to get all users
router.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('List of users');
});
// Define a route to create a new user
router.post('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Create a new user');
});
module.exports = router;
...