How to Choose the Best Technology Stack for Web Application Development?

If you want your web application development project to be rewarding and successful, choosing the right technology stack is the most vital step. It not only gives your project life but also makes it maintainable, scalable and committed to your functional requirements.

Therefore, the success of any web application development project rests on two things: the technology stack you select for development and the skills of the developers you hire from a professional web application development company. Here, we will drill down to the core to understand what exactly technology stack is and how to select the right one for your project.

What Is Technology Stack?

Technology stack comprises of layers of components or servers that are used to build technologically rich and functionally profound web or mobile applications. It is the perfect platform for an amalgamation of APIs, platforms, operating systems, databases and components for building a product. In literal terms, it is a set of code modules which are built atop the other, ranging from generic to specific.

In the web development world, you have a rich choice of tech stacks which makes it difficult to choose the best one for your web development project. A decade ago, things were much simpler on the development front. Developers used ASP.NET on the front end, while SQL Server was used on the backend and .NET on the middle tier. Then as the years passed by, new tools and technologies came into existence and the need to select the right technologies for building software products emerged.

When choosing the tech stack, one should have a foolproof plan in mind because the impact it will create would be visible across various layers of business, including HR, finance, management and marketing.

Anatomy of Technology Stack

There are two main components of any application: the client side and the server side, popularly known as front end and back end respectively.

• Client Side (Front End) – As the name suggests, client side is the one where the real interactions with the end user will happen. The three main technologies for the front end are HTML – the markup language, CSS – the stylesheet, and the Javascript – browser scripting language.

The two main front end JavaScript frameworks in the present scenario are AngularJS by Google and ReactJS by Facebook. The biggest advantage they offer is that they let you create highly intuitive user-interfaces. As both frameworks are language independent, regardless which stack you use for server side, it will still function as per your expectations.

For CSS, Twitter’s Bootstrap is the most favored framework because it has interactive components built on JQuery. Most probably this is the reason why Java is used for Android and Objective-C and Swift is used for iOS development.

• Server Side (Back End) – As the name suggests, obviously the back end comprises of a server, an application, and a database. Server-side is the umbrella term where programming the business logic, server-side hosting, deployments as well as working with databases takes place. LAMP and Python are two of the most popular back end stacks used by developers.

The full form of the LAMP is Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Here Linux is the server operating system, Apache – the web server, MySQL – the database, and P is for PHP – the scripting language. Python is an object-oriented programming language that is mainly used by entrepreneurs. Sometimes, the developers use Ruby or Python instead of PHP.

In the recent times, JavaScript – formerly a browser scripting language – has now emerged as a popular server-side programming language. In the JavaScript, MEAN stack has gained ultimate popularity for MVPs. The full form of MEAN is MongoDB, Express.JS, AngularJS and Node.JS. Here, MongoDB acts as the NoSQL database, Express and Node runs on back end and AngularJS renders the interface.

Factors To Consider While Choosing the Best Technology Stack

If you are looking to build something unique and more sophisticated with dynamic features and high-end functionalities, go for niche technologies such as Ruby on Rails or Django and select your technology stack around that.

1. Type of Project – The vital determinant while choosing the right stack

• Small Projects – If the project is small and has to be delivered in the shortest time span or within a strict timeline, then go for simple technologies like CMS or WordPress.
• Mid Range Projects – If the project is mid-level, it would definitely need the combination of programming languages because developers would require working on various functionalities that provide them seamless integrations across multiple platforms. In such cases, Java and C# are the commonly used programming languages.
• Complex Projects – In the complex projects, developers are required to create web apps using several functions. Here too, several programming languages and different web technologies are used.

Along with the size of the project, it is also important to keep in mind the business goals. This is because different technologies would directly influence the business goals because the aim is to provide seamless customer experience.

2. Team’s Knowledge Base – Another important component to be taken care of

Remember, the job does not end with deciding on the tech stack. The level of expertise of the developers that you hire from your web application development company is another important thing to be taken care of. Once the web app has been launched, the developers also have to take care of the maintenance work.

At Source Soft Solutions, we have a highly professional and skilled team of web developers. We also believe in rich documentation so that our client can keep a tab on our every step of development. We also adopt technologies that are easily testable and result in quality product and faster delivery. There are certain technologies which call for Test Driven Development (TDD) i.e., to test first and code later.

3. Scalability

Scalability means the ability of the application or website to handle work. As the number of users increases, the app should be capable enough to handle the growth inclusive of the seasonal spikes. Therefore, whenever the stack is chosen, future growth should be kept in mind. The dimensions of growth can be both horizontal and vertical.

With horizontal scaling, it means the product will run on several servers at the same time so as to handle the herd of traffic, while vertical scaling means you add more programs to process new data. To prevent product collapse in the near future, both horizontal and vertical scaling play a significant role.

4. Overall Cost of Development

Although the most popular tools and frameworks are free to use and open source, yet you might sometimes have to pay subscription fees to get access to the advanced features. It completely depends on you, how much you are willing to spend on your web app development project.

Depending on the technology stack you are using, you need to get it licensed as well. Before making the final decision, weigh the balance of cost using a particular stack vs. the usability of its features. The cost incurred on the infrastructure is also a major constraint to be taken care of. And of course, you have to pay salaries to the developers, and if you are getting more people on a contract basis, you have to consider their cost as well. Therefore, it is recommended to opt for open sourcing.

Conclusion

Prior finalizing the technologies, you need to understand your project requirements. Go through the factors that need to be considered while choosing a tech stack, and study each and every tech stacks that are currently reigning in the market to select the right one as per the requirements of your project.

Sometimes used and said technologies do not work, because you need to be practical and understand the pros and cons of each. Source Soft Solutions, a leading web application development company, can help you choose the right tools for creating a scalable and highly functional web app that beats the competition. Let’s discuss your project requirements!

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