Watt

Watt is a comprehensive Node.js application server developed by Platformatic, designed to streamline the development, deployment, and scaling of Node.js applications. It consolidates various components such as databases, APIs, and frontend frameworks into a single cohesive platform, simplifying what traditionally requires multiple separate tools. By leveraging the SO_REUSEPORT feature in the Linux kernel, Watt effectively distributes connections, reducing overhead. It supports crash restarts, graceful shutdowns, and multi-application deployments while offering shared HTTP caching across workers.

Watt is framework agnostic, supporting popular frameworks like Next.js, React, Vue, Express, and Fastify. It automatically generates REST and GraphQL endpoints from database schemas, facilitating rapid API development. The server includes built-in observability features such as automatic logging, metrics, and distributed tracing, although integrating with services like DataDog requires additional configuration.

Watt is ideal for building full-stack applications, orchestrating microservices, and creating database-first APIs, with capabilities like role-based access control and real-time features via WebSocket and GraphQL subscriptions. It offers robust production monitoring through Prometheus metrics and OpenTelemetry tracing. With its zero-configuration setup and one-command deployment, Watt ensures consistent development and production environments, making it a powerful tool for modern Node.js development.