Building Express.js Backend Services Should be Easy!

Building Node.js API services should be easy, yet a lot of developers struggle when they need to start a new backend service. Every month there are new ways to set up your Node.js project, new best practices for auth or security, a new framework, or your favourite NPM package has breaking changes since the last time you used it.

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Every time I speak with backend devs who work with Node.js, they all say the same thing - setting up your service from scratch is a pain. Most of the time, they don't remember how to configure TypeScript to work with Node.js, how to run in localhost with watch mode enabled, set up their auth flows with JWT access tokens, or get their NGINX web proxy working correctly.

To be honest, I also fall into that category. Whenever I start working on a new Node.js API service, I open one of my older projects and copy most of the basic logic from there. Sometimes I even check multiple projects to find various parts of the puzzle. Then I run pnpm run dev and... I get an error. Something went wrong, and I spend half a day figuring it out.

Recently, I've been quite impressed by the work that shadcn has done with his shadcn/ui library, so I thought, why not build something similar for backend developers?

Introducing Vratix

Vratix is a collection of easy to use Open Source API Modules and Node.js templates that implement common backend logic while following the latest best practices. It’s built to be extensible, robust, and secure. Vratix comes with:

• Fully tested modules with Postman API collections ready to use
• A CLI for quick setup - no more searching for guides or copying code from old projects
• Modular, extensible, and secure architecture

Just like shadcn/ui, you own the source code - we import it into your project, and you retain full control and ownership. Using the Vratix CLI, you can get a Node.js API in a few seconds.

We’re also working on private API Modules so you can build custom logic or modify community modules and reuse them across projects.

We believe that DX is the most important thing when building dev tools, so we have built the CLI with that in mind - no assumptions, as least dependencies as possible and comprehensive documentation. Our docs show the full list of API Modules and what is coming next!

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Learn more about how we build our modules in these guides:

• The Right Way to do Authentication in Node.js
• Stripe Subscription Integration in Node.js

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Have you experienced these frustrations when building Express.js APIs? What tools or workflows do you rely on when setting up a new project from scratch? Let me know in the comments!

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