What is the alternatives to NodeClient(NodeBuilder)

The article about using TransportClient alongside the Client Node is the way to go if you want to have autodiscovery and such.
But if you know for sure some of the addresses of some nodes, then you can directly use the TransportClient.

Or better, start to use the Rest Client. It's a low level one but 5.6.0 will come with a high level one.
I started to use it and it's really great.