How to Create a Simple Server in Node.js that Display Hello World ?

We will create a simple server in Node.js that returns Hello World using an express server. Node.js is a powerful JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 engine, commonly used to build scalable network applications. One of the fundamental tasks when learning Node.js is creating a simple server that responds with "Hello World." This article will guide you through the steps to set up such a server.

Steps to Create Hello World Server in Node

Step 1: Initialize the NodeJS application using the following command

npm init

Step 3: express module which is a web framework for NodeJS in your project using the following commands.

npm install express

The updated dependencies in package.json file will look like:

"dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.19.2"
  }

Example: Implementation to create a server in nodejs.

// app.js

// Require would make available the
// express package to be used in
// our code
const express = require("express");

// Creates an express object
const app = express();

// It listens to HTTP get request. 
// Here it listens to the root i.e '/'
app.get("/", (req, res) => {

  // Using send function we send
  // response to the client
  // Here we are sending html
  res.send("<h1> Hello World </h1>");
});

// It configures the system to listen
// to port 3000. Any number can be 
// given instead of 3000, the only
// condition is that no other server
// should be running at that port
app.listen(3000, () => {

  // Print in the console when the
  // servers starts to listen on 3000
  console.log("Listening to port 3000");
});

Step to run the application: Run the app.js file using the following command.

node app.js

Output: Now open your browser and go to http://localhost:3000/, you will see the following output:

So this is how you can set up the server and achieve the task. If you want to return anything else then pass that argument in res.send() of the app.get() function instead of "Hello World".