Choosing the right tech stack for web applications and apps is essential mainly because it ensures developers that their product is quality and meets customers’ expectations. Read on to find out what tech stack is exactly and find out the top technologies.
- Tech Stack: What is it?
- Popular technology stacks
- What makes a tech stack
- Building a tech stack: Elements
- Objectives of a modern tech stack
- Tips for creating a tech stack
- Examples of tech stacks used by prominent companies
Tech Stack: What is it?
A tech stack (or technology stack) is a list of all the technology services used to build and run an application. It includes programming languages, a database, libraries, frameworks and development tools (front-end and back-end) that a company uses.
The term Tech Stack is mainly used in developer circles and facilitates the exchange between the structure of applications. Marketing circles often talk about MarTech stack, just like sales or software developers talk about sales stacks.
Tech stacks are sometimes called solutions stacks, too.
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Now that you know what a tech stack is, let’s take a look at some of the most popular modern tech stacks below:
1. LAMP
LAMP is one of the most popular back-end web stacks. It consists of:
- Linux (operating system),
- Apache (web server),
- MySQL (database) and
- PHP / Pearl / Python (programming languages)
The advantages that LAMP offers are security, flexibility and good customization options.
2. Python Django
As the name suggests, this back-end tech stack consists of the Python programming language and the Django framework. Again, the web server is Apache and the database is MySQL.
This variant is ideal for creating Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) due to the quick implementation.
3. MEAN
MEAN is used for the full-stack development of a web application and stands for:
- MongoDB (Database),
- Express.js (application / back-end framework),
- Angular (front-end framework), and
- Node.js (runtime environment / runtime system).
JavaScript is often used as the programming language in the front and back end. Developers find MEAN primarily in high-performance applications and scalable web applications.
4. MERN
MERN is also a full web app stack. The difference to MEAN is that Angular is not used as the front end framework, but React / Redux.
The MERN Stack has been gaining popularity since a lot of new applications are built-in JavaScript. Therefore, MERN Stack Developers are in high demand.
Front-end, back-end, or full-stack?
What makes a tech stack?
A tech stack or “technology stack” contains the following features to allow developers to interact with an application:
- Programming languages (e.g. PHP, Python, JavaScript)
- Back-end frameworks (e.g. Laravel, Django, Ruby On Rails)
- Front-end frameworks (e.g. React, EmberJS, Bootstrap)
- Data storage (e.g. MongoDB, MySQL, PostgresSQL)
- Servers (e.g. Apache, Ngnix, AWS, Azure)
- Monitoring (e.g. AppDynamics, Datadog)
- BI solutions (e.g. Tableau, Qlik, Power BI)
- APIs (e.g. Mulesoft, Google Apigee)
- Analysis tools (e.g. Google Analytics, Heap)
- UI / UX solutions & design patterns
Building a tech stack
Every business has different needs when it comes to their applications and tech stack. Therefore there is no uniform structure. Nevertheless, each team should decide for themselves what technologies and which core programming language to use. Based on this, additional tools and services can be gradually added.
Before the boom of SaaS products and services, tech stacks were basically: LAMP + standards for PHP-based applications + no open-source alternatives such WAMP.
The options are now much wider and engineering and product teams can combine different tools to build the perfect product.
#1 Server-client model
A server is a program on a device that provides functionality, utilities, and data for other programs (called clients) to access. The relationship is therefore also called the server-client model.
The most well-known examples here are Nginx and Apache.
#2 Front-end Tech Stack: Client
Product development usually starts with the front-end tech stack – this is the part that the users get to see at the end. To do this, a backend tech stack must be chosen that supports the user interface. Each additional tool builds on the frontend and backend tools.
The technologies that belong to the front end are visible to the user. These are, for example, the visual elements of a website or app. They also provide the user with the necessary tools to perform certain actions on this application.
Web application interfaces are typically built using JavaScript and the AngularJS, Backbone.js, and ReactJS frameworks.
There are front-end technologies such as Objective-C / SWIFT for iOS apps and Java for Android smartphones.
Front-End technologies examples:
- HTML (HyperText Markup Language): For structuring the content of a website
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): Determines the design and style of the content, e.g. colours, fonts, layout, etc.
- JavaScript: Allows an application to be interactive and add animated and interactive content
#3 Backend Tech Stack: Servers
Backend technologies include web frameworks, programming languages, servers and operating systems. For web development, LAMP is a popular tech stack.
As seen above, the term is made up of the Linux operating system, Apache HTTP server, MySQL relational database management system and the PHP programming language. For developers, frontend languages are usually easier to program than those in the backend.
Back-end programming languages and frameworks:
- Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
- JavaScript (NodeJS, MeteorJS, ExpressJS)
- PHP (Laravel, CodeIgniter)
- Python (Django, Flask)
- Scala
#4 Database
It is also possible to develop an app without a database. However, this can limit its functionality. The database is essential to store data about the users. Based on this, the application can be adapted and optimised.
Potential databases include:
- MySQL (relational)
- PostgreSQL (relational)
- MongoDB (non-relational, NoSQL)
Further examples of possible technologies:
| Front-End | Back-End | Database | Infrastructure |
| React.js | Node.js | MySQL | NGINX |
| Redux | Feathers.js | MongoDB | Bitbucket |
| Sveite | Redis | PostgreSQL | TeamCity |
| Angular | Python (Django, Flask) | FireBase | Docker |
| Next.js | Kubernetes | ||
| ES5, ES6 | Apache | ||
| typescript | AWS |
Objectives of a modern tech stack
The main goal of a tech stack is to optimise an application. The developers can read the previous strengths and weaknesses from the list and act accordingly. Opportunities for improvement can be identified and errors corrected.
Testing for bugs is especially necessary for programming languages that are known for their complexity. In general, extensive testing is an advantage for any tech stack.
The general rule is: each new level builds on the previous one, and underlying levels cannot simply be removed.
A tech stack also serves as orientation and support for third-party developers. In this way, they can orient themselves to its specifications and content.
At the same time, a technology stack can also be a prerequisite for new employees and thus simplify the recruiting process. As early as the application process, you can ask about specific programming skills that appear in your HR Tech Stack. That is why this information is often mentioned in job advertisements.
Tips for creating a tech stack
#1 Plan with the future in mind
Applications evolve and expand over time. Developers must take this into account when creating a tech stack. If they don’t, additional services have to be integrated. The more often this happens, the more cumbersome it is to manage the application.
Therefore Minimum Viable Products (MVP) should be part of the strategic development. These are created with open-source tools and serve as test applications. In this way, errors can be recognized quickly and undesirable developments can be avoided.
#2 Make use of analytics
To make managing a technology stack as easy as possible for developers, most companies use product analytics. There are special analysis platforms that are designed to link data sources within a tech stack. This helps in monitoring, tracking and solving problems within an application.
3. Set a budget
Before building an application, a budget should be set for the technologies. In case of doubt, the cost for a tech stack should be set higher and the variable costs of the employees should be taken into account.
4. Choice of tech skills
Tech stacks and the associated requirements are constantly evolving. Nevertheless, trends can always be seen and should be kept an eye on.
When it comes to programming languages, Python, R and JavaScript are the most popular. However, CSS, SQL, Java and Bash/Shell are also often found in tech stacks. Programmers also enjoy working with Rust, Kotlin, and Swift as well as Bash/Shell and C#.
Examples of tech stacks used by prominent companies
Shown below are examples of tech stacks used by prominent companies across the world.
| Company Name | Apps & Data | DevOps | Business Tools |
| Netflix | Python Node.js React Java MySQL PostgreSQL Amazon S3 Amazon EC2 Flask Amazon RDS Amazon DynamoDB Cassandra Hadoop Oracle Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Amazon EMR Presto CloudBees Pig WinJS Atlas-DB | GitHub Git Jenkins Gradle AWS CloudTrail Apache Mesos Sumo Logic Express Gateway LogicMonitor Crittercism Dynomite Boundary Vector | G Suite Confluence OneLogin HubCommander |
| JavaScript Python React Java NGINX PostgreSQL Redis Django GraphQL React Native Redux Objective-C Memcached Cassandra Gunicorn Immutable.js Gearman ReasonML | Webpack Babel Sentry Jest HAProxy Fabric Flow (JS) Nuclide | – | |
| React PHP GraphQL Memcached Cassandra Flux Tornado Presto Hack Relay Framework RocksDB Yoga Prepack McRouter Hydra Framework Beringei | Jenkins Datadog Jest Chef Phabricator HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine) Nuclide Buck Infer LogDevice | Confluence Campaign Monitor | |
| Python Java AngularJS Android SDK Golang C++ Dart guava Material Design Lite Material Design Preact LevelDB | Kubernetes Android Studio Bazel EarlGrey Seesa | Gmail G Suite Google Meet | |
| AirBnB | JavaScript React Java MySQL NGINX Redis Amazon S3 Amazon EC2 Sass Ruby Amazon CloudFront Rails Amazon RDS Hadoop Airflow Amazon EBS Presto Druid Airpal | GitHub Webpack New Relic Kibana Sentry Amazon CloudWatch Logstash Vagrant Datadog Jest Chef Enzyme Apache Mesos SmartStack | Slack G Suite Asana InVision Campaign Monitor React Sketch.app Assemblage |
| Spotify | Python Java NGINX PostgreSQL Bootstrap Amazon S3 Amazon CloudFront Kafka Cassandra Hadoop Google BigQuery Apache Storm Google Cloud Bigtable | Docker New Relic Datadog Pingdom TestFlight Percy Apache CloudStack Helios | G Suite AdRoll Qualaroo Desk.com Blossom |
| Amazon | React Java MySQL AngularJS Amazon S3 Amazon EC2 Redux Amazon CloudFront Amazon RDS Amazon DynamoDB Amazon SQS Amazon VPC Perl Amazon Redshift Amazon ElastiCache Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Amazon EBS Amazon EMR redux-saga Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Amazon EC2 Container Service Amazon CloudWatch Jest NightwatchJS | Amazon WorkSpaces |
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