I'm developing a serverless mobile app for monitoring hospital alarms. It's an event-driven system, built for a small user base with minimal heavy workload. We have a small team of three developers working on this mission-critical medical app. Given our requirements, I want to know which technology would be the better choice: Java or Node? Additionally, should I go with Spring Boot or NestJS? Looking forward to your insights!
5 Answers
If you’re okay with investing time in optimizations like AOT for Java, it’s a great choice. Otherwise, you might look into Go or Rust paired with a queuing system for events. They handle scaling well, and although I wouldn't recommend Node for computation-heavy tasks, it's an option. Just keep in mind the trade-offs!
Using Java means you’ll be sticking to Android. If you're planning for cross-platform, you'll want to think about that when making your choice.
Honestly, it really comes down to what your team is most comfortable with. Both Java and Node can handle this kind of system well. Stick with what you know best!
Java is robust and maintainable, especially with threading. Just be aware it uses more RAM. Node is great for event-driven tasks, but it's not as fast, and you might run into some tricky logic issues. If RAM usage is a concern, you might also want to consider Rust, though it’s less straightforward to work with.
I think both options are solid. I've used Java in healthcare projects before and have had great success with it. It's straightforward and gets the job done for mission-critical tasks. Node could work too, but I just feel Java might be a tad more reliable for your needs.

But honestly, with your described workload, optimizations might not even be necessary. Just focus on what's simplest for your dev team!