It is a universally acknowledged truth that a tech stack can both make or break your entire software-based product. And the whole make-or-break situation reels back in your hand, and your choice of a tech stack can either boost your product to a commendable beginning or crumble it apart even before it starts.
Therefore, even before executing a single line code, it becomes excessively imperative for you to decide on a tech stack. The modern world is the world of technology, thereby you have a wide selection of tech stacks to choose from, and honestly, these decisions could be overwhelming and extremely puzzling.
However, your selection process doesn’t really have to be tormenting. All you need to do is: factor in some aspects and shortlist. So, continue reading this article as we will be highlighting everything about tech stacks and how to choose the one that perfectly fits your project. Keep reading to eliminate your tech stack quandary.
Table of Contents
What exactly is a Tech Stack?
A tech stack or a technology stack is a collection of several technological tools an organization uses to build and run web or mobile applications.
Tech stacks are referred to as the solutions stack in the corporate world and usually consist of:
- Frameworks
- Programing languages
- Front end tools
- Applications connected via API
- Back end tools
- and a database
Investing into the different components of your tech stack is a significant stage to discovering accomplishment as a software-based organization since your tech stack gives your product group the resources and tools it needs to fabricate and keep up with your software product, and to ensure it keeps on addressing client needs.
As of now, we are through with the introduction portion of tech stacks. Let us now delve a bit deep into its components, categories, and importance.
What categories are included in the Modern Tech Stack?
Before the dazzling days of technology and electrical wonders, tech stacks used to be plain and simple. All they had was
- Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP famously referred to as the LAMP
- Or WAMP, where Linux was replaced by Windows
These two tools were the old-school framework for PHP-based building web applications. However, the times have significantly changed in the last few years, and the field of technology has bloomed like spring flowers. Today both the product management team and engineers have enough resources to combine and build a product that will technologically stand out in the market segment.
The kind of product an organization wants lays the edifice in the tech stack decision making. In fact, the kind of product you want directly reflects the type of tech stack you will need. And this is what brings us to the various categories of our tech stack:
- Servers and load balancing: This category of tech stacks revolves around servers, routings, content distribution, caching services, and networking. All these features are wonderfully crafted into one to help your application process requests, have smooth runs, and maintain a good scale capacity. Big corporations like Google and Amazon almost always offer similar services as their lesser-known counterparts; however, they offer you a better chance to mix and match each service as they lay them out as line items. This helps you to choose the services that align well with your requirements and demands.
Popular offered services: Azure, Apache, Google Cloud, Nginx, AWS, Fastly, CloudFlare
- Operating Systems and Programming Languages: This category involves a huge decision-making process. Choosing the type of operating system for your project is a crucial decision, and it is mostly decided by the type of environment you work in and the type of application you are trying to create. Selecting the operating system and programming language tones down to three factors:
- The type of backend you want
- The devices your app is meant to target
- The user experience you are trying to build
Popular languages: Java, Ruby, Python, JavaScript
Popular operating systems: Linux, ios, Android
- Data storage and querying: This category involves multiple layers like:
- Relational database
- Non-relational database
- Data Pipelines
- Data warehouse
- Queries
All these layers work together on your app’s data and record user behavior during the app run. This data can be analyzed by developers to further strengthen their UI and UX.
- Frontend Framework: Frameworks means a set of utilizes, languages, and libraries that assist developers in building applications. This category provides frameworks and services that developers use to provide UX, UI, and client-side functionalities.
Popular frontend tools and frameworks: Backbonejs, jQuery, Emberjs, AngularJS, Bootstrap React
- Backend Framework: The backend framework provides the most basic functions you will need to structure your application. It provides fundamental building tools, structuring tools, and tools that help you communicate and organize data, database, user requests, password reset alerts, or registration codes. Sometimes organizations may sideline frameworks and decide to design every single piece of code from scratch that may come out as specific and unique but most of the time, it just complicates the work environment and slows down the overall development process.
Popular frameworks: Django, Ruby on Rails, Spring, Laravel, .Net
- API services: These are collections of services that connect you with the resources of your tech stack. API services are gateways that help you manage traffic while you exchange large volumes of information from other systems.
Some API platforms: Apigee, Google, Zapier, Tealium, Segment Mulesoft
- Behavioral and product analysis: These include the tool category that is used to store, track and analyze user behavior during the entire customer journey. These resources help you gain insights on user experience as well as organize data. The analysis can be done directly with the analytics tool, or the data can be piped on the warehouse.
Popular analysis tools: Google Analytics, Heap, Amplitude, Countly, Mixpanel
- Performance Monitoring Tools: This category helps you understand the functioning and performance of each tech stack layer. These tools collect data from your software and later Analyze and monitor server health, services, databases, and other working systems.
Popular performance monitoring tools: Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace, Appdynamics
- Business Intelligence Tools: These tools integrate company and market data in order to make high-level business decisions. These tools innovatively visualize data and give out reports and performance status.
Popular business intelligence tools: SAP BusinessObjects, Microsoft Power, Tableau, Looker, Qlik
Why is choosing a Tech Stack a critical decision to take?
Getting your tech stack right is an extremely intense process. The type of tech stack you invest inlays down the foundation of your business, the type of tech stack you choose will strongly influence your work quality, your product’s stature, and your hiring process.
The choices are limitless, there may be some trade-offs involved, but you can choose a stack that fits your ongoing need and will eventually evolve as your company expands and matures.
Tech stacks offer a wide range of variety, some appeal to a specific audience like android users or iPhone users while others offer speed, and then some offer personalization and scaling. For a company that is on the threshold of growth and expansion, the last choice seems to be the most appropriate.
- Choosing a tech stack that offers to scale would prove advantageous. Numerous backend stack techs allow users to handle additional servers in the need of the hour instead of estimating the figures upfront.
- As for utilities that do not cater to your core products, try investing in alternatives that can accommodate your business growth or have low switching costs.
- Lastly, the monitoring and analytical tools — well, you need to select these with utmost care. They carve out the entire future of your business, reporting your current business’s performance, the features your product is using, the areas that need improvement, and the areas that strengthen your business. Therefore, analytical tools sketch out a roadmap for your entire product, which is why choosing the wrong one can thwart your product’s progress.
Final Thoughts
Thus we see how a single wrong move can drive your entire product journey off the rails. A tech stack can make or break your business; its powers are seamless, using them judiciously can drive you to success. Vice versa, it can completely devastate your product.
When it comes to judiciously choose a tech stack, you need to keep three things in mind:
- A tech stack that eases the building process
- A tech stack that evolves with your needs
- A tech stack that fits your budget
And when you find a tech stack that comes through with these three key features, you will have found your perfect tech stack.
If you are still a little fuzzy on the options, we suggest you check out Saasworthy’s blogs on Stacks.
