I am planning to develop only rest api using express js, I looked into lot of boilerplate projects. None of them provide modularity. Modularity I mean all code related to articles module need to be in article folder then I can drag and drop that.
I saw MEAN somewhat close to that but it has client side (angular related) code in that. I need pure rest api framework.
To me it doesn't sound like you want to use a MEN stack, I do not see a reason to use MongoDB in your question. You can write modular express apps e.g. like this:
Assuming you have three modules in three different folders moduleA, moduleB and moduleC. Each folder contains its respective logic and provides some RESTful routes to the outside world. In express you would create one separate Router for each module like this:
ModuleA:
/* moduleA/routes.js */
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
... // add all routes of moduleA
module.exports = router;
ModuleB:
/* moduleB/routes.js */
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
... // add all routes of moduleB
module.exports = router;
ModuleC:
/* moduleC/routes.js */
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
... // add all routes of moduleC
module.exports = router;
And then you would have one main app.js file in your root folder where you enable and disble the single modules by mounting them into the main express app:
/* app.js */
var express = require('express');
var moduleA = require('./moduleA/routes');
var moduleB = require('./moduleB/routes');
var moduleC = require('./moduleC/routes');
var app = express();
... // add your main app's middlewares
app.use('/moduleA', moduleA);
app.use('/moduleB', moduleB);
// app.use('/moduleC', moduleC);
app.listen(3000);
In this example the modules moduleA and moduleB are enabled and are reached by the routes /moduleA/* and /moduleB/* respectively. The module moduleC is disabled as we commented it out.
If you have questions please leave a comment.
It sounds like you want to use a "MEN" stack, which is MongoDB (for backend), Express, and Node.JS.
Here's a tutorial on how to build a project with a "MEN" stack: https://github.com/maslennikov/node-tutorial-men or this one: https://scotch.io/tutorials/build-a-restful-api-using-node-and-express-4
expressapp is enough to build a modular rest api. What is your question?