Ask HN: Should we rewrite our .NET app in Node.js?

[shickys]

We are small healthcare startup working on a CRUD app. We used offshore dev team to build our initial version but the experience had been rather frustrating. We recently found out that we need to migrate from .NET framework to .NET core to support deployment into client environment.

At this point, we are thinking of rewriting everything with local team using NodeJS to avoid being at the mercy offshore dev team. NodeJS local talent pool seems to be much bigger than .NET counterparts.

Would appreciate hearing your thoughts!

[Justsignedup]

- if you are already rewriting, that's a good start...

- i'd use Typescript as a starting point

- NodeJS has a ton of community around it.

How I would make the decision for myself:

- what frameworks / languages are you personally comfortable supporting, and would be able to jump in and fix if it came down to it.

- you will find devs for any language, and will find many devs willing to learn a language and framework for a great job, so are you willing to take a hit with .net if people you will interview don't really know .net yet (thus a learning curve).

- if you already have a large pool of potential consulting companies who can work with nodejs, use that.

for emphasis

- what frameworks / languages are you personally comfortable supporting, and would be able to jump in and fix if it came down to it.

Personally I am not comfortable with .net and would have a large learning curve trying to support anything. So I would not choose .net for myself if I was deciding. Though... web frameworks are all more or less doing the same thing, so its not like you'll be starting at square zero.

[uberman]

I guess if there is a talent gulf that could definitely be a factor, but I would be leery of jumping on a new platform. More importantly, unless I misunderstand your post, you are potentially not solving the problem of feeling "at the mercy of a 3rd party dev team".

In fact, to reverse engineer your app will you not have to find a new dev team with experience in both node and .net? Unless you are flush with cash, it seems to me like porting to .net core is the thing to do as that seems to be the path of best return.

Of course this does nothing to address what you see as a liability with respect to talent but if you don't have the talent in your company then your problem is going to persist no matter what platform you migrate to.

[shickys]

I am Go/Javascript developer by trade. Once we migrate to nodejs, I am confident that I can jump in and fix urgent bugs if needed. I don't have time to learn .NET due to my other responsibilities. As a result, we are at the mercy of offshore dev shop and have to beg them to deliver quality code.

[Gibbon1]

Two thoughts of mine. When I think crud app I think that's .net target. And when I think NodeJS I think leet webdev not corporate healthcare industry. There might be a more NodeJS talent but they might not be of the training and temperament you want.

[ryancp]

I would be hesitant to do a full re-write at this point. It seems to me the smoothest path from a business perspective would be to convert to .NET Core. I love NodeJS, but .NET Core is fantastic as well and supported by a huge company with massive resources that wants to see it succeed. This bodes well for its growth prospects going forward. Best of luck either way you decide.

[shickys]

I personally know of a few people and one company that moved away from .net and reinvented themselves (Node.js and Go). I also can't seem to find too many .net developers in my network neither. I would love to hear any counter arguments.

[consultutah]

AWS has a utility to help with the migration from .net to .net core. I wouldn’t do the rewrite. There are plenty of .net developers out there.

[shickys]

Microsoft also provides migration tool but it doesn't really help much. Our analysis shows that we need to rewrite large part of our backend as part of migration effort.