🏭 General-Purpose Web Frameworks

You can build your main backend API using web frameworks or libraries that are not specifically designed for games. But you might need additional processes or services to handle game-specific logic, for instance to run a 3D simulation of a scene for client validation, or a stateful websocket server.

There are plenty of backend languages and frameworks available, such as Rails for Ruby or Django for Python, but I will focus on Node.js options since we are already working with JavaScript or TypeScript.

You may use simple HTTP endpoints, REST, GraphQL, or tRPC.

Barebones web server libraries

Express
https://www.fastify.io/ (opens in a new tab)
Koa

Backend Frameworks

Next
Nest

Include Deno, Bun options

Authentication

Next Auth
Passport

GraphQL

Apollo Server

tRPC

tRPC (opens in a new tab) is a new library that allows you to call remote functions (similarly to gRPC) from the browser via React Query, in a fully-typed experience.

tRPC 15k 81k/w

I have not used it yet but it is highest on my list of tools to try, and is likely to replace GraphQL in my stacks.

🤝 Reconciliation 🎮 Game Frameworks