How to Pick the Right Web Technology Stack for Your Product

April 13, 2020

To develop a web application, you need to select the server, database, programming language, framework, and front end tools that you’re going to use. These web development technologies build on top of each other and are collectively called a stack.

Choosing a web technology stack can be time-consuming and challenging. And the final decision always depends on your project requirements and time frames. If you want to develop a complex project, you can contact us.

The choice of a relevant tech stack is particularly challenging for small businesses and startups, since they usually have limited budgets and, thus, need a technology stack that provides the most bang for the buck to get their projects off the ground.

To save time and effort in finding the perfect technologies for your mobile or web project, we’ve decided to give you a helping hand and reveal the criteria for choosing the most appropriate tech stack for your web application.

Listed below are some guidelines on choosing the right web tech stack for your project:

1. Determine the type of project

It starts with defining your business goals and what it needs to help it grow. There are 2 major reasons for starting a project. First is to process heavy loads, which will require programming services. Second, you are in need of a program that will speed up business processes and production.

For small projects, there are available website creators online like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, etc. This is considerably workable that can be done within a tight project timeline.

A web project that requires seamless integrations for multiple platforms and specific functionalities, then it would be considered as a mid-range project. This type of project is common to e-commerce, banks, government sites, and financial industries.

When developers have to create web apps with several functions and programming with different web technologies, this is classified as a complex project. These are companies that have huge online marketplace such as Amazon, Alibaba, etc.

The technology you choose should depend on the problem you want to solve.

2. Choosing a developer team to work with

Technology is broad and there are so many tools, platforms, programming languages coming out in the market. Choose a web development team that has a working portfolio, a known reputation of how they helped companies grow their businesses, and has good working relationships with their past clients.

The web developer should also possess knowledge of how to integrate modern technologies and other technical stuff in your work to make a good software or web product.

The project launch is quite a challenge. Web development can be time-consuming and requires repeated testing.

Some factors that are affecting project latency are developing unique and innovative solutions. Using Ruby on Rails (RoR) stack technology can help in reducing time to market (TTM).

A team that is transparent with their approach and can quickly adapt to changes will help you reach your goal without a hitch. They can work efficiently and be committed on the agreed project launch without sacrificing quality.

If you have a team that has developer expertise, your product will surely be launched on time.

3. Decide on project scalability

Scalability refers to the ability of the application or website to handle work. As the number of users goes up, the app must be able to handle the growth spurt, including the seasonal spikes. The developers should choose a stack that will accommodate future growth of the app. The dimensions of growth could be horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal scaling means running the product on several servers at the same time to handle the influx of traffic. Vertical scaling means you add more programs to process new data. Both horizontal and vertical scaling are important to prevent a product collapse in the future.

4. Prepare product maintenance and support

The maintainability of the app depends on these factors:

Codebase — If the code is too lengthy and complicated, then developers would need to spend a longer time trying to process it; and if the code base is too concise, then debugging it correctly becomes an issue. So it is important to choose a language that uses short, but easily maintainable and reusable codes.

Basic software architecture — The software architecture supports the portability, scalability and reusability of the app, and it influences both the dynamic and static component configurations.

Maintenance of the software structure must be done even when the apps are scaled. It happens when more users are added, app features get more dynamic and porting takes place. Importantly, the app should be user-friendly with seamless performance.

5. Determine the cost of development

It is important to determine how much you are willing to spend for the project. There are tools that are free and open source frameworks. For an upgrade, you can get access to premium by paying additional fees.

Added to spending is getting its license which will depend on the type of tech stack that you will use.

Lastly, you have to pay the salaries of the developers, and if you are getting more people on contract basis, you have to consider their cost as well. In short, if cutting costs is a major consideration, then you must go for outsource help from a team of web developers.

6. Get started

If you are in a rush, be agile and get a basic page running. The advantages of doing things this way are that you can evaluate progress in real time and change direction as needed. You minimize your risk because your system is already running. You may not yet have all the features you had imagined, but it’s running.

You probably won’t have all the required knowledge at an early stage, but you can fine-tune and optimize things or change tech stacks as you grow (and have the requisite budget). It’s important to keep in mind that quality is a matter of doing things properly.

Technology isn’t the only thing that matters: you need the right design, the right requirements, the right testing procedures, and so on. The most important thing is making sure that you don’t limit yourself in terms of scale or migrating to a different technology in the future.

In order to fully understand project requirements, an experienced team of professional web developers will be able to understand and choose the right and efficient tools for building a scalable and bespoke app for your business.

If you have more questions and don’t know where to start, we can help you with your next project.

Feel free to contact us today.