If you're running a web server, you're processing possibly hundreds of requests at any given time. Especially since JS is single-threaded, you want to minimize

If you're running a web server, you're processing possibly hundreds of requests at any given time. Especially since JS is single-threaded, you want to minimize blocking by awaiting, aka yielding your thread to another thread to let it continue processing its own request. Async minimizes time spent doing nothing.