What are the differences between Opera Unite and Node.js?

Both seem to allow coding applications entirely in JavaScri开发者_JS百科pt. Both allow server side JS as well as client-side JS.

So, from a technology and programming standpoint, what is the difference between the both?

Opera Unite is a collaborative technology that uses a compact server inside the Opera desktop browser to share data and services. You can write applications — in the form of Opera Unite Services — that use this server to serve content to other Web users.

Source: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/an-introduction-to-opera-unite/

So Opera Unite runs inside your Browser on your Computer, Opera then sets up stuff to allow access to the stuff you wrote for your local Opera Unite "server".

Node.js is an event based, asynchronous I/O framework that uses Google's V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js is commonly used for heavy client-server JavaScript applications.

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/tags/node.js/info

Node.js is a standalone framework, it requires no Browser and can run any server. Node.js also allows for many things that Unite does not. For more information please read the Tag Wiki.

For a good impression of Node.js I recommend this Video by its creator Ryan Dahl:
http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/05/20/video-dahl/

Node.js is based on v8 from google and is a regular server.

Opera unite is part of the opera browser. afaik

The key to understand the difference is that Opera Unite runs on your computer (inside the Opera desktop browser), while Node.js code will normally live on some web server that you pay a hosting company to use.

This makes Opera Unite suitable and convenient for some things, like for example quickly setting up an image gallery to share with friends without having to upload all the images from your computer to somewhere else. The sites/services you create with Opera Unite will only be accessible when your computer is turned on, connected to the Internet and Opera is running.