Web Development with Go: Building Scalable and Efficient Web Applications

Web development is a constantly evolving field, with new programming languages, frameworks, and libraries emerging each year to enhance coding efficiency and methodologies. In the vast landscape of programming languages in 2023, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the myriad options, including well-known ones like Java, Python, and C#.

Today, let's explore a slightly less mainstream but modern language—Go. Also known as Golang, this language, developed by Google, builds upon the strengths of existing languages such as Python and C. Golang has gained popularity for web development, making it a compelling choice for new applications. 

If you're considering hiring Go developers for your upcoming web development project, read on to discover what sets this language apart, explore the best Golang frameworks, understand its pros and cons, and much more.

Understanding Go programming language & its popularity

Golang is a well-known compiled language, built with statically typed functions. Its domain name, golang.org, has led to the colloquial use of the name Golang.

Introduced in 2009 and developed by Google, Go was created by Robert Griesemr, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson, who aimed to design a language that retained the positive aspects of other languages while avoiding their drawbacks.

Over the past 12 years, Go has surpassed the popularity of languages like Ruby and Kotlin, emerging as one of the most cherished languages in the development community, according to the StackOverflow Developer Survey. 

Go incorporates the strengths of languages like C (static typing and run-time), Python, and JavaScript (simple syntax). With robust support for concurrent programming, Go has become a preferred choice for modern applications requiring high performance, such as network programming, big data, machine learning, and server-side applications.

Notably, Go stands out as one of the highest-paying languages, with developers earning an average of $140K annually. Its syntax, reminiscent of C, includes features like memory safety, garbage collection, structural typing, and CSP-style (Communicating Sequential Processes) concurrency.

Additionally, Go boasts a robust standard library, offering a wide range of utilities and support for various domains, including web development, file handling, testing, and more.

Top features of Go programming language

The Go programming language, also known as Golang, boasts a variety of features that make it a popular choice among developers for various applications. Here are some of the top features of the Go programming language:

• Simplicity and Readability:

Go emphasizes simplicity and readability, making the code clean and easy to understand. This feature contributes to faster development and better maintainability.

• Efficient Compilation:

Go's compilation process is notably fast, allowing developers to quickly build and deploy applications. The language is statically typed, providing the benefits of static analysis without sacrificing compilation speed

• Garbage Collection:

Go features automatic memory management through garbage collection. This helps developers avoid memory leaks and enhances the overall reliability and stability of applications

• Strong Standard Library:

Go comes with a robust standard library that covers a wide range of functionalities, from networking and cryptography to file handling. Hence, there is enhanced application development process without any dependency on external entities.

• Cross-Platform Compatibility: 

Go supports cross-platform development, allowing developers to write code on one platform and seamlessly run it on various operating systems without modification. This feature enhances the portability of Go applications.

• Static Typing:

Go is statically typed, providing the benefits of type safety during compile-time. Hence, developers can track bugs at the early stages of web development. This will result in code reusability and its robustness during the process.

• Concurrency without Parallelism:

Go allows developers to write concurrent code without explicitly dealing with low-level threading details. This promotes easier development of scalable and concurrent applications.

• Compatibility with Other Languages:

Go is designed to be interoperable with other languages. Developers can easily integrate Go code with existing projects written in languages like C and C++, facilitating smoother transitions and collaborations.

• Open-Source Community:

Go has a vibrant and active open-source community. This fosters collaboration, continuous improvement, and the availability of numerous third-party libraries and tools.

• Built-In Testing Support: 

Go includes a built-in testing framework, making it easy for developers to write and execute tests. This promotes the development of robust and maintainable code through effective testing practices.

• Error Handling:

Go has a distinctive approach to error handling using multiple return values. This encourages explicit handling of errors, leading to more robust and reliable code.

• JSON Support:

Go has excellent support for encoding and decoding JSON data, a crucial feature for web development and working with APIs.

These features collectively contribute to Go's popularity and its effectiveness in addressing the evolving needs of modern software development.

Advantages of Go programming language for web development

The Go programming language, commonly known as Golang, offers several advantages for web development, making it a preferred choice for many developers and organizations. Here are the key advantages of using Go for web development:

1- Efficiency and Performance

Go is renowned for its exceptional performance and efficiency. Its compiled nature and minimal runtime overhead result in fast execution times, making it ideal for building high-performance web applications.

2- Concurrency Support

Go's built-in support for concurrency with Goroutines and channels enables developers to efficiently handle concurrent tasks. This is particularly valuable for building scalable and responsive web applications that can handle numerous simultaneous connections.

3- Simple Syntax & Easy Compilation:

Go's syntax is designed to be simple and readable. This contributes to faster development, easier maintenance, and a reduced learning curve for developers transitioning to Go for web development.

Go's quick compilation process accelerates the development cycle, allowing developers to iterate and deploy changes rapidly. This is advantageous for web development projects that require frequent updates and enhancements.

4- Built-In Testing Framework:

Go comes with a built-in testing framework that simplifies the writing and execution of tests. This built-in support for testing encourages developers to adopt a test-driven development (TDD) approach, resulting in more robust and reliable web applications.

5- Standard Library:

Go boasts a comprehensive standard library that covers a wide range of functionalities needed for web development, including HTTP handling, encryption, and JSON support. This reduces the reliance on third-party libraries and streamlines the development process.

6- Type Safety & Scalability:

Go's static typing provides type safety during compilation, helping catch errors early in the development process. This leads to more reliable and maintainable code for web applications. This programming language is designed with scalability in mind. Its concurrency features and efficiency make it well-suited for building scalable web applications that can handle increased workloads.

7- Excellent Documentation:

Go is known for its clear and comprehensive documentation. This facilitates faster onboarding for developers and ensures that teams can easily understand and maintain the codebase of web applications.

8- Community Support:

Go has a growing and active community of developers. This community support fosters collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the availability of a wide range of resources, tools, and libraries that enhance web development with Go.

9 - Microservices Architecture:

Go is well-suited for building microservices-based architectures. Its efficiency, concurrency support, and fast compilation times make it an excellent choice for developing and deploying microservices in web applications.

Top web development frameworks for Go programming language

There are multiple web development frameworks available for building scalable applications using Go programming language. Have a look:

1- Gin

Gin is a straightforward framework designed for essential web development tasks. It is fast, capable of handling crashes or panics and recovering, includes routing features, collects errors from HTTP requests, and facilitates rendering.

While Gin is well-documented on GitHub, it may not be suitable for large backend applications or enterprise-level solutions.

2- Beego

Beego offers specific features such as interfaces and struct embedding. The framework automates testing, packaging, and deployment, expediting web app development. It provides monitoring for QPS, memory and CPU usage, and goroutine status, granting developers full control over their web apps.

Beego includes its Object-Relationship Map (ORM), simplifying the organization of software databases. While it may not be ideal for beginners due to its extensive features and complex core, it presents a compelling option for Django users accustomed to similar command-line interfaces.

3- Kit

Kit is focused on building microservices and creating powerful interfaces. Developers have the flexibility to choose their preferred databases, stages, and components, making it a lightweight and easy-to-use framework.

When working with Kit, developers can concentrate on the business aspects of programming, thanks to its design for interoperability. However, one drawback is the increased overhead of adding APIs to services due to the extensive use of interfaces.

4- Echo

Echo is a minimalist framework that significantly enhances the features of Go. It includes extensible middleware, handles central HTTP errors, facilitates rendering, aids in building RESTful APIs, and provides TLS certificates.

The Echo framework is maintained by a single developer, resulting in infrequent code updates, which can be a notable drawback.

5- Fasthttp

Fasthttp lives up to its name—it's as straightforward as the http/net package but faster. While regular HTTP needs to allocate memory for each goroutine, Fasthttp uses a worker pool model with zero allocation.

Fasthttp excels in handling massive amounts of data, supporting over 100K queries per second and more than 1 million concurrent keep-alive connections on modern hardware. The only downside is its incompatibility with Beego and HTTP/2.

6- Martini

Martini is an efficient and lean language designed for quickly developing modular Golang web apps and services. It offers impressive and easily integrable third-party support. With extensive documentation and a large install base, Martini has been in use for a while, making it a reliable choice.

Hire VLink’s developers with expertise in Go programming language

Go can provide numerous advantages, including concurrency and simplicity. Therefore, Golang can be employed in any environment where prioritizing speed and networking power is crucial. These capabilities are highly valued by nearly every tech company. 

You can reach out to VLink to hire software developers for your next Golang web development project. If you are still not sure whether Go is suitable for your project, or you need dedicated Golang developers for your team, our team will help you deploy expert developers who would also be a culture fit!