node-opcua is the most popular Node.js (JavaScript) OPC UA implementation, used for fast prototyping, audit scripts and Web/MQTT/REST-to-OPC-UA integrations, and it is embedded in Node-RED and in many IoT projects.
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node-opcua benefits from the native async model of Node.js, which keeps scripts short and responsive even when polling many servers in parallel. It is distributed as an NPM package, comes with extensive client and server examples, and delivers enough performance for 1 000 to 10 000 monitored items. In Python the competition is python-opcua / FreeOpcUa (deprecated) versus asyncua (the modern continuation), but the combination of Node.js with Node-RED remains one of the most productive IIoT prototyping environments available today.
Use node-opcua for prototyping and lightweight gateways, but for a hard-real-time or safety-critical product prefer a C/C++ stack: garbage collection pauses can ruin tight publishing intervals.
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