Introduction

A technology stack is a fundamental part of the development of your startup, being an ensemble of software tools and technologies based on which you develop your eventual projects. The technical hardware basis is the one of the first things you have to care about, so a good SSD virtual private server can be a real headstart for everything you are going to deploy on top of it. In the following article, we want to explore some specificities of choosing the right tech stack for your startup.

Understanding the requirements of your project

First and foremost, you have to figure out what type of project you are going to create. Your further steps will depend on whether this will be a web app, a mobile app, a SaaS product, an e-commerce platform or something else.

Also, make sure to consider the complexity of your product, whether it will require heavy computations and real-time data processing, or will rely only on simple CRUD operations. 

Consider the scale of your projects as well as eventual scalability strategies, that is, how rapidly your project may grow and whether your stack will be able to be in step with your startup’s growth.

Last but not least, you have to consider your startup’s budget, as this directly defines the scope of your possibilities.

Considering the team’s expertise

Next, you’ve got to consider what human resources you have at your disposal.

Evaluate the skills that are already present in your team. For example, what languages and frameworks your team is already good at. Afterwards you’ll have to consider what skills are still lacking and create a plan for hiring new members.

Evaluating frontend requirements

The next step would be to evaluate the frontend requirements of your startup. Answer the question, what kind of UI your project will need, whether it should be more or less interactive. This will define what kind of frameworks will be used for developing it.

React.js, for instance, is great for building dynamic UIs.

Vue.js is lightweight and flexible and not so hard to master.

Angular is in turn a full-fledged framework, which is more suitable for large-scale enterprise apps.

Choosing the right backend technologies

The following step is to choose the right backend technologies. Here you have to make up your mind about the language and the database to be used.

As for language, you’ll have to consider such factors as performance, security, and scalability.

Node.js is perfect for real time applications, particularly for the scalability it offers.

In turn, Python is better for rapid development and data-heavy apps.

Ruby on Rails is, in turn, allows developers to develop projects simply and fast.

Finally, Java will be great for large scale enterprise apps, known for being robust.

What about database, you can choose between:

SQL (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) which will be great for structured data with complex relationships.

NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB, Firebase) will be in turn perfect with less structured, unstructured, or semi structured data, providing flexibility in schema design.

Considering the ecosystem and community support

There are following aspects to consider when we talk about the ecosystem and community support:

It’s better to look for popular frameworks, as these may offer quality community support and a lot of resources and documentations that can be helpful in mastering the framework.

Also, consider whether you want to deal with an open source or with proprietary tools. Open-source generally provides more flexibility and customizability as well as strong communities. Proprietary tools, in turn, may offer some exclusive features that can be particularly useful for certain scenarios.

Also consider the integrations with particular third-party software that your team might need.

Security and compliance needs

Look for tools for which security is top priority, especially when you're going to handle sensitive data. Make sure to check if your stack supports compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and others.

DevOps and automation

Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) are practices in software development that aim to improve the process of delivering code changes more frequently, reliably, and efficiently.

DevOps in turn refers to a set of practices that help improve collaborations between development and operations teams to ensure quicker, more reliable and efficient delivery of software.

Consider development costs

Different stacks suggest different requirements in terms of time and resources needed to develop with the stack in question. This will be accompanied with operations costs such as hosting, scaling and maintenance. Consider all of these aspects and coordinate them with your budget to meet the most optimal decision.

Conclusion

Choosing a tech stack is a important step before you start a startup. In the article above we’ve tried to provide you with an approximate checklist of aspects you have to consider to give you a better idea of where to start and where to head depending on the resources you have at your disposal. We hope that we have clarified the questions you had and now you have a clearer vision of your startup. Good luck!