Creating an Express project provides a robust foundation for building web applications and APIs in Node.js with minimal configuration and maximum flexibility. As the creator of CoreUI, a widely used open-source UI library, I’ve set up countless Express projects for backend services and API development. From my 25 years of experience in web development and 11 years with Node.js, the most straightforward approach is to initialize a new npm project and install Express as a dependency. This method provides a clean starting point for scalable web applications.