The proper tech stack (the choice of a programming language, technologies, frameworks and libraries and other development tools) that will run your application should be determined before any code gets written. Meanwhile, the today’s choice of the right technology stack is gigantic. Indeed, there are dozens of attention-worthy web development options regarding the best-suiting technology stack for your next big project. Is it that easy to collect the proper set of technologies? What should you know when it comes to choosing a tech stack for your business application?
We all know that anything really can be written in anything. But pick it right and your project will flourish, pick it wrong and you may experience pitfalls combined with huge financial troubles. So, make sure you conduct a lot of consideration and analysis before opting for the proper set of technologies and selecting the particular technology stack. Check all the pros and cons of the selected tech stack before getting started. To effectively execute your project, opt for an experienced team, the right processes, and test-driven development. Ensure you have found a well-fit architecture before developing an application. You get the picture, don’t you?
Don’t worry, with Artelogic, an expert in custom web application development, choosing the right technology stack for web made simple and snap. Below, we have handpicked 7 major steps for you to follow if you need to decide upon the most suitable tech stack for a web application.
But before we jump into today’s application development related post, consider the following: there are two web application software components any app possesses:
- Client side (front end), which refers to the user interface of the product;
- Server side (back end or the source code), referring to the base of your product.
And it is of great importance to determine the right technology stack for both of them if you want a truly robust, powerful yet responsive and elegant software app, running in the long term.
So, how to choose the most suitable stack for web development?
Anyway, to properly choose a technology for your successful web application or maybe mobile one, follow these 7 steps:
1. Pay attention to your web apps team expertise. Always start with the technologies your team is good at unless, of course, you are going to hire another team for the forthcoming project. Thus, if your development team has extensive expertise in PHP or Python development, choosing the other popular programming language, for instance, Java or Ruby as your server-side solution for your web app, is not a smart way to go. Availability of human resources does play a fundamental role here. The same goes for the client-side: without doubts, selecting the technology your development team masters is a smart matter. Note that if you are choosing a technology stack for your business app, there’s an option to develop an app using less back-end. Such an app is more responsive and lightweight. Moreover, when it comes to web application development, you can take AngularJS (a single web page) with in-browser data storage, or use the standard frontend technology (like JavaScript with Node.js) to create the app’s backend.
2. Study your target audience and your project requirements. Answer the following questions about your potential customers:
- What’s their demographic?
- How old are they?
- Are they tech-savvy?
- Why would they want to use your app?
Now answer these questions about your product:
- How can your resources fulfill the needs of your product?
- How much traffic is expected?
- Do you need a complex, simple or mid-range project?
Once studied, you get the full picture of your ideal customer and prerequisites. And then it will become notably easier for you to concentrate on your product’s web tech development and opt for the best stack for your web application. With this in mind, you can choose the latest technology stack that best suits your product, its market and your development platform budget. In fact, the type of your project pays a fundamental role in choosing the proper tech stack. Consider the following:
- Simple CMSs (content management systems), for instance, WordPress, Wix or Bynder, are a nice solution if your project is small and has a small budget and a soon-to-be-delivered deadline. There are numerous plugins, themes, and free tools to choose from. Pure PHP is also a great option here, which allows creating an app from scratch rather than using templates.
- Frameworks (pre-built tools along with ready-to-implement rules) will suit you if your project is middle-range. If quality frameworks and libraries can save tons of development time, so why not benefit from third-party solutions then? By the way, there are a lot of open-source technologies.
- If you have a complex services web project, any basic framework is not enough. Instead, you should use pure programming, frameworks for programming languages and accelerators. Java and C#, for instance, would suit you if your projects include some very unique and tricky requisites.
3. Keep the architecture simple yet scalable. Keep it consistent and straightforward, but make sure you leave space for further scalability. The greater the initial architecture is, the easier it will be for you to maintain it in the future. If it’s hard to work with the initial structure, you are to expect more deviations along the way. It is great fact that modern programing languages are easily extensible. In terms of common databases for web, for big data, choose a NoSQL (Mongo, Redis) data store and you will be able to scale a lot or a relational (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc) data store if ease of use is what matters to you the most.
4. Determine whether you want a mobile or web app, or both. The percent of mobile apps is constantly growing, so it is for certain that integrating mobile into the plan of your project development has become a matter of When rather than If.
To achieve native mobile experience, our application development company recommends you deciding upon the widely adopted native technology, such as Objective C, Swift, or Java. Should you get a desktop-style experience to the web, leave your choice on a single page application with a JavaScript heavy front-end combined with a popular web framework, for instance, Angular or React. Should you need a dynamic and interactive web app, we use .NET and LAMP stacks. They have numerous frameworks, support multiple platforms, and have different SDKs combined with other great technology tools for building software. In fact, everything depends on your ultimate app requirements and your business strategy.
5. Follow the trends, but don’t forget to think ahead. Make sure the selected popular technology is likely to remain popular and well supported in the nearest future. It’s always easier to use trending technologies that are being spoken about. One important thing to mention here: make sure that they also boast massive developer communities, frameworks and libraries. Without a shadow of a doubt, finding the solution to your technical need will be easier if you choose a well-known set of technologies.
6. Select security-driven technologies. Top security is the major concern for any digital product. Don’t forget to take such technologies with which you can build an undoubtedly secure, safe, protected, and encrypted app. Luckily, novel technologies have special security guidelines to follow, which are aimed to hold on threats, double protection, and lower vulnerabilities and pitfalls.
7. Remain Realistic. Double-check that you opt for the technology, which lets you create the functionally you need, however, ensure you don’t underestimate your budget or skills. It’s really crucial to remain realistic during the whole period of your app development.
8. Be honest to yourself: choose a technology stack not because it is modern, but because it can enrich your service project and ensure your professional web team knows it or at least you can get people who master developing such solutions.
The Bottom Line
Actually, tech stacks do matter. Picking the best technology for your next web app is a serious matter and to succeed in it, make sure you follow the mentioned above steps. If for some reasons, it’s tough to figure out your technology of choice, Artelogic is there to help you. We can help you choose the technology stack for your web application that will take into account your business niche ultimate needs and requirements and bring you the best results in the long run.
By the way, it is also of paramount importance to mention that choosing the right technology development partner is almost halfway to your product software development success. Artelogic offers customer-centric apps that are robust, full-featured, remaining easy and fun to use, plus rather simple to scale. So, partnering with our reputable web application development company that hires dedicated experienced web developers doubles the chances of your project success.
In a nutshell, developing a web application and choosing the proper language, application framework, and other development tools made easy with Artelogic. So, don’t wait any longer, contact us and, we will help you choose the most suitable web tech stack for your business application. Let Artelogic help you solve real business challenges!