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Meteor
Developer(s)	Meteor Software
Initial release	January 20, 2012; 12 years ago
Stable release	3.0 / 22 July 2024; 5 months ago
Repository	Meteor Repository
Written in	JavaScript
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	JavaScript framework
License	MIT License. For dependencies: various including proprietary.
Website	www.meteor.com

Meteor, or MeteorJS, is a partly proprietary, mostly free and open-source isomorphic JavaScript web framework^[3] written using Node.js. Meteor allows for rapid prototyping and produces cross-platform (Android, iOS, Web) code. The server-side MongoDB program is the only proprietary component of Meteor and is part of the Meteor download bundle. It is possible to use Meteor without using the server-side MongoDB. It uses the Distributed Data Protocol and a publish–subscribe pattern to automatically propagate data changes to clients without requiring the developer to write any synchronization code.

Meteor uses JavaScript as its primary programming language, enabling developers to use a single language for both client-side and server-side code.^{[citation needed]} This approach can streamline the development process for mobile applications by reducing the need for additional programming languages.^{[citation needed]} On the client, Meteor can be used with any popular front-end JS framework.^{[citation needed]}

Meteor is developed by Meteor Software. The startup was incubated by Y Combinator^[4] and received $11.2M in funding from Andreessen Horowitz in July 2012.^[5] Meteor raised an additional $20M in Series B funding from Matrix Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Trinity Ventures.^[6] It intends to become profitable by offering Galaxy, an enterprise-grade hosting environment for Meteor applications.^[7]

History

Having been in development for about eight months, Meteor was initially released in December 2011 under the name Skybreak.^[8] By April 2012, the framework was renamed Meteor and officially launched.^[9] During the next few months, and with the help of large investments from Andreessen Horowitz and endorsements from high-profile figures in the startup world,^[9] Meteor steadily increased its user base. It became more commonly used in production apps and websites.

Particularly after receiving large amounts of venture capital in its Series B funding round, Meteor acquired and integrated several other startups into its core product. Acquisitions have included FathomDB, a cloud database startup,^[10] Galaxy, a cloud platform for operating and managing Meteor applications,^[11] and Kadira, a performance monitoring solution.^[12] Meteor has successfully monetized its userbase: In 2016, Meteor beat its own revenue goals by 30% by offering web hosting for Meteor apps through Galaxy.^[13]

From 2016 the Meteor Development Group (the open source organisation powering Meteor) started working on a new backend layer based on GraphQL to gradually replace their pub/sub system, largely isolated in the whole node.js ecosystem: the Apollo framework.

In October 2019, the Meteor.js open source framework and Galaxy Hosting Products were purchased by Tiny Capital and renamed Meteor Software.^[14]

Distributed Data Protocol

Distributed Data Protocol (or DDP) is a client–server protocol for querying and updating a server-side database and for synchronizing such updates among clients. It uses the publish–subscribe messaging pattern. It was created for use by the Meteor JavaScript framework.^[15] The DDP Specification is located on GitHub.^[16]

Books

Coleman, Tom; Greif, Sacha – Discover Meteor (2014)^[17]
Hochhaus, Stephan; Schoebel, Manuel – Meteor in Action (2014)^[18]
Müns, Philipp – Auditing Meteor Applications (2016)
Strack, Isaac – Getting started with Meteor.js JavaScript framework (2012)^[19]
Susiripala, Arunoda – Bulletproof Meteor (2014)^[20]
Titarenco, David; Robinson, Josh; Gray, Aaron – Introducing Meteor (2015)^[21]
Susiripala, Arunoda – Meteor Explained – A Journey Into Meteor's Reactivity (2014)^[22]
Turnbull, David – Your First Meteor Application: A Complete Beginner's Guide to the Meteor JavaScript Framework (2014)^[23]