Node.js is a runtime, not a language. It is quite capable, but as per usual, it depends on what you need/have/know, ASP.NET Core is a very good choice too.
In my experience ASP.NET 9 is vastly more productive and capable than Node.js. It has a nicer developer experience, it is faster to compile, faster to deploy, faster to start, serves responses faster, it has more "batteries included", etc, etc...
It has terrible half-completed versions of everything, all of which are subtly incompatible with everything else.
I regularly see popular packages that are developed by essentially one person, or a tiny volunteer team that has priorities other than things working.
Something else I noticed is that NPM packages have little to no "foresight" or planning ahead... because they're simply an itch that someone needed to scratch. There's no cohesive vision or corporate plan as a driving force, so you get a random mish-mash of support, compatibility, lifecycle, support, etc...
That's fun, I suppose, if you enjoy a combinatorial explosion of choice and tinkering with compatibility shims all day instead of delivering boring stuff like "business value".
I used to agree but when you have libraries like Mediatr, mass transit and moq going/looking to go paid I’m not confident that the wider ecosystem is in a much better spot.
Node is a lot like PHP of old. Pretty bare-bones, but has lots of other people's code you can use. The problem is most of it doesn't work.
Dotnet is batteries included. It has all the features you'll need, almost. If you need something else, the packages you find are just much higher quality.
