Node.js only uses one thread, is async broken?

Question

I heard the reason that MongoDB and other Node.js programs are fast is because they do everything at the same time with async, but when I run a Node program, I only see one thread on my system. What's wrong? Have they not finished this feature yet? If not, how can this be faster than PHP/Apache, where they will run many threads instead of wasting system resources sitting idle?

Threads have nothing to do with asynchrony. You need to read http://blog.slaks.net/2014-12-23/parallelism-async-threading-explained/ — SLaks, Sep 07 '15 at 00:24

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 07 '15 at 00:25

async is not the same as multi thread. those are two different things.

Asynchronous means that the thread doesn't need to wait for the response of a function call before doing other things. you can however mix async with multi threading but that does not mean that they are the same.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 07 '15 at 00:37

Asynchronous programming does not necessarily mean multi-threaded.

Asynchronous only means that the data can be transmitted intermittently rather than in a steady stream.

For example, Javascript is a single-threaded runtime that make use of Asynchronous Communication.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

0

You can have multiple processes and/or workers in node.js too.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

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answered Sep 07 '15 at 00:55

Chong Lip Phang

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Node.js only uses one thread, is async broken?

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