What web tech stack are folks choosing for seed stage startups today?
16 comments
I run a product development consulting agency that works with entrepreneurs and early-stage companies.
For the past 8 years, we have mainly used Elixir. It is good for building straightforward web apps and APIs and great for more tricky things like chat. We also use Ruby on Rails, mostly for existing projects.
A lot of the initial work of building MVPs does not need to be fancy, it's just CRUD. Traditional frameworks are great for that. We also use React where it makes sense. The JavaScript world has a lot of accidental complexity that slows you down and doesn't add much value. Tools like Phoenix LiveView are great for adding fancy UI without overhead.
For mobile, products need a first-class user experience, and getting access to native platform functionality can be critical for some apps. Because of this, we have historically done native development. React Native is the first framework that is really competitive, but it still has its weaknesses. React Native may allow you to share code between platforms and use web people for native work, but it can result in somewhat generic apps. If you follow the "full stack teams, not developers" approach, then speed and cost of development of native is fine. After the initial development phase, the bulk of development work ends up being on the web.
For the past 8 years, we have mainly used Elixir. It is good for building straightforward web apps and APIs and great for more tricky things like chat. We also use Ruby on Rails, mostly for existing projects.
A lot of the initial work of building MVPs does not need to be fancy, it's just CRUD. Traditional frameworks are great for that. We also use React where it makes sense. The JavaScript world has a lot of accidental complexity that slows you down and doesn't add much value. Tools like Phoenix LiveView are great for adding fancy UI without overhead.
For mobile, products need a first-class user experience, and getting access to native platform functionality can be critical for some apps. Because of this, we have historically done native development. React Native is the first framework that is really competitive, but it still has its weaknesses. React Native may allow you to share code between platforms and use web people for native work, but it can result in somewhat generic apps. If you follow the "full stack teams, not developers" approach, then speed and cost of development of native is fine. After the initial development phase, the bulk of development work ends up being on the web.
Elixir seems cool. RoR and React Native used to be the bread and butter given the bustling community. I imagine the community is still there and I'd still recommend anyone wondering about this question to just use RoR+RN. But I think Elixir has been a really interesting piece of tech that now has native mobile app dev capabilities[0] though IDK how it compares in ease-of-use and community support:)
[0] https://native.live/ -- HN Discussion @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32694668
[0] https://native.live/ -- HN Discussion @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32694668
Given the high failure rate of early stage startups (all startups, really), and knowing that choice of tech stack rarely makes or breaks the venture, pick what you or your team can use to get to MVP fastest. If you make something useful no one will care about the underlying language or framework.
For simple web sites it's still hard to beat PHP for simplicity and ease of deployment, and since it dominates web development by a wide margin you can find developers.
For building apps (mobile? desktop?) you are constrained by the tools intended for the platform -- Swift, Java, C# -- unless you have the expertise and time to do your own thing or work with a cross-platform development tool.
For simple web sites WordPress is the almost "no code" solution. Inelegant and definitely not sexy, but gets the job done, zero to web site in a few days.
For simple web sites it's still hard to beat PHP for simplicity and ease of deployment, and since it dominates web development by a wide margin you can find developers.
For building apps (mobile? desktop?) you are constrained by the tools intended for the platform -- Swift, Java, C# -- unless you have the expertise and time to do your own thing or work with a cross-platform development tool.
For simple web sites WordPress is the almost "no code" solution. Inelegant and definitely not sexy, but gets the job done, zero to web site in a few days.
Laravel+Livewire
It is as close to nocode as you can get. It has sane defaults, Hosting is cheaper than coffee.
The default setup is faster than Django and rails, and with swoole it can handle way more requests than node. But yeah none of this should matter. Go with something you and your team is comfortable with.
Also from my experience your location might be important too, Django/Ruby if you are in the US, PHP or Node or C like languages for the rest of the world. But with remote work, that might not matter as well.
It is as close to nocode as you can get. It has sane defaults, Hosting is cheaper than coffee.
The default setup is faster than Django and rails, and with swoole it can handle way more requests than node. But yeah none of this should matter. Go with something you and your team is comfortable with.
Also from my experience your location might be important too, Django/Ruby if you are in the US, PHP or Node or C like languages for the rest of the world. But with remote work, that might not matter as well.
"Whatever you're most comfortable with" is the most common advice I've heard. If you're just starting out and have no significant experience in any stack, look at your requirements and see which supports it best out of the box. Nothing matters as much for a startup as being able to iterate fast!
Rails
Or the obligatory "the stack you already know".
Worrying about your tech stack is one of those procrastination traps like fiddling with your development environment too much rather than writing code.
Or the obligatory "the stack you already know".
Worrying about your tech stack is one of those procrastination traps like fiddling with your development environment too much rather than writing code.
It's not much about tech stack (just pick whatever your team is familiar with first), forget about performance for now (go, rust,...). Stick to industry standards: OpenAPI, Types, FP patterns.
What's more important is the architecture. It doesn't need to be complicated, but sane enough for you to break it down later in case you want to grow.
What's more important is the architecture. It doesn't need to be complicated, but sane enough for you to break it down later in case you want to grow.
My startup is currently building a platform for pre-seed startups & entrepreneurs willing to gain early traction and launch their products faster, feel free to have a look: https://stimpack.io/
it can help you quickly launch landing pages and saas/webapp boilerplates
it can help you quickly launch landing pages and saas/webapp boilerplates
Ruby on Rails for us at https://heiioncall.com/
iOS and Android apps are Flutter, but most of the heavy lifting is still done by the Rails backend.
iOS and Android apps are Flutter, but most of the heavy lifting is still done by the Rails backend.
TypeScript, React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS, CDKTF
Next.js w/ TypeScript and Supabase
Laravel. With turbo-laravel initially and maybe Inertia if necessary as the project grows.
Next.js and managed DB's like Supabase, Planetscale, etc.
The tech stack you/your team already knows.
In my case for OnlineOrNot it was Next.js (boring old Node.js + TypeScript + React).
In my case for OnlineOrNot it was Next.js (boring old Node.js + TypeScript + React).
JS, Node.js, MySQL, AWS
What tech are people coming out of the gate with nowadays for problems like the below?
* Building simple websites * Building apps
edit: Maybe something no-code?