Golang pros: In Node.js it is difficult to utilize full CPU cores. You will have to use cluster module (which basically is different processes communicating with each other via IPC using shared port) or use worker_threads but then they serialize messages and cannot share objects like true threads so threading in Node is awkward this way. So if you have business logic in your code which is synchronous and have too many requests then the latency of Node servers will be higher than go equivalent due to lack of concurrency and even with concurrency an equivalent go code is faster than Node as its compiled to binary. Go being statically typed means you dont have to add type validations in run time as all your go interfaces will validate data from IO calls automatically whereas in Node you will need validation libraries to validate incoming requests data (like Yup, express-validator, class validators, AJV etc) and basically everywhere you would want a strong type check in Node. In Go you get all this builtin. Go has much stronger primitives especially numbers compared to Javascript. MEMORY LEAK. Nearly all projects I worked in last 8 years in Node in different companies had memory leaks especially when websocket was involved. And i have spent countless hours profiling those Node servers by taking heap snapshots and inspecting memory usage. Sometimes it was due to library itself (ex. Socket.io inflate/deflate incoming JSON) and other times were due to developers code because of how closure in JS works and how V8 garbage collector works with mark sweep etc. I am saying in NodeJS its very easy to write a code which can leak memory and a lot of third party libraries (even established ones like socket.io) can cause leak especially when sockets are involved and those are VERY difficult to debug. Node servers consume more memory compared to equivalent Go code. Extensive standard library compared to Node.js Node pros: Has TON of 3rd party libraries to get work done compared to Go. No meta framework in Go like laravel in php or Nest.js (or Adonis.js) in Node.js world. And somehow Go community is to hostile to those ideas. It means you will end up using standard library to solve same problems which Nest.js/laravel have already solved and your solution might not be robust. It becomes prevalent if you, in your Go code, add authentication, authorization, graphql, websocket middlewares etc. Go gets messy without any meta framework or lack of good 3rd party libraries compared Node.js as the same things are easy to solve/already solved in NodeJs Extending previous point, it also means it is harder to bootstrap and build web app compared to Go as its so faster to build products with Node. Typescript as a language is MUCH fun to work and syntax of TS/JS is significantly better than Golang. Google has a history of solving problems in awkward way and always reinventing wheel just to look cool. Ex. Weird for loops, EXTREMELY weird OOP, export functions with capital letter (bad code styling by starting functions with capital letters instead of marking them with export and easier to search what is exported), receiver function (seriously to solve a problem they created another), has pointers which most other high level languages dont have and devs like not having to deal with pointers, painful string interpolation, painful to add JSON functionality, lack of generics, function can return more than 1 value, PAINFUL error handling and lack of DRY code because of it etc. Overall Go is just NOT the fun language syntactically which is a shame. 5. Faster to bootstrap ideas and overall MUCH more fun to work with by a long shot compared to Golang and overall in general. 6. Has npm modules fir just about anything though quality can be debatable. So, verdict? Overall its a tuff call. The main attraction of golang is single binary executable, easy concurrency, high speed and big standard library but its a shame that the lack of meta frameworks/small ecosystem and especially weird/poor syntax really ruin it for me significantly. Whereas Node and TS/JS is so much fun to work with with a HUGE npm ecosystem using which developers can build products significantly faster but lack of good concurrency support means hitting limits on Node server with demanding features is easy and very hard to solve given JS is not built for concurrency and servers benefit from it. The only way out would be horizontally/vertical scaling and shelling out more $ compared to Golang. More on reddit.com

I have used both in production. I have been using Node.js for about 3 years now (I was a very early adopter. "JAVASCRIPT ALL THE THINGS!!!"). I have also been using Go for about a year now. I can tell you first hand, if you go with Go (see what I did there?), you will save yourself MASSIVE amounts of headache. Javascript is very fast. Yes this is true, V8 is very fast... however, only if you are benchmarking a simple benchmark. As soon as you start adding in complex application logic all that performance goes out the door because the virtual machine has a very difficult time correctly inferring the type and thus not being able to optimize. But if your application consists of a tight loop, it will be fast.. so its got that going for it :D Node.js: Callback hell. Must I say more? With Go, you can have each connection use a different Goroutine and use "blocking" IO AND still have better performance than Node.js. Why? because you aren't really blocking, while some IO operation is being performed on that goroutine, the scheduler does work on other goroutines/connections. So you get all the benefits of non-blocking IO without callback hells. There is absolutely NO REASON to have callback spaghetti when you can simply let the runtime take care of the nauseating details. In my 3 years of full time node.js development, I have honestly only had ONE occasion where I used the same 4 lines of code both in the server and in the client. I shit you not. There is no merit to the claim that you use the same code on the server and on the client. SURE... if you were writing a simple game and you wanted to replicate the game logic on the server to make sure nobody is cheating... it might be useful. But really ask yourself if you want to perform complex logic on the same thread that everybody else that is trying to reach the server is waiting on. No, you don't. Ohh and did I mention Node.js isn't really all JavaScript? A good portion of the pakcages on NPM are also written in Coffeescript. Hope you don't mind learning another language to deal with a package you depend on. So much for using the same language for both server and client! With Go you get type safety. This CANNOT be overstated.. except to maybe ruby-ists(jk jk! don't shoot me). Also, you get a unified tool-chain for pretty much everything you need from formating to getting modules. The one benefit you have with Node.js over Go is the massive number of packages available on NPM. But most of them are useless abandoned junk. So, even that is questionable. Testing: Lets just say that in Node.js/Javascript you would have to write tests that check the type of a variable. tsk tsk tsk... This is the only way to properly test JS and make sure nothing crazy is going on. OR!!!! here is a revolutionary idea!! let the damn compiler do it for you! MIND BLOWN!!! Anyway that is my two cents. I hope I didn't come across as a Node.js hater.. but having dealt with its warts and limitations for the past 3 years, I would only wish it on my worst enemy. Good luck More on reddit.com

There's different types of "performance", so to speak. Golang is theoretically better at computationally-heavy tasks like crypography or say, image processing. However, most apps hit their performance ceiling due to network requests, I/O from databases, etc. and not due to inherent language/runtime differences. Overall, you mentioned struggling to decide between tech, here's some advice that might help: 9 times outta 10 it's not the language that matters that much (assuming we're talking about small projects). Pick whichever one you like more. I haven't used Go profesionally, but I use it as much as I can on my projects, and prefer it strongly over Node. More on reddit.com

If you can't come up with a strong case for your team mates, then it simply means that you really have no strong case to be using Go in place of another technology.

Secondly, your team mates and your own attitude towards this is wrong and both sides seem to be taking their respective stance simply because they are reluctant to learn and use new tech rather than for any other reason.

If you can't come up with a strong reason to be using Go, then don't try to force it in based on a whim. This is not the place for personal feelings or preferences.

If you are going to hand off the project to a client or some other team, then choice of tech becomes even more important and should be done carefully so that the other side can have a smooth transition.

If you are using node, I highly recommend using Type Script rather than JavaScript for more reliable type safe code.

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