How to Choose the Best Tech Stack for Your Startup

A tech stack for startups is a set of programming languages, database technologies, and web frameworks used to build an application. It is one of the most important parts of any project because the right tehich stack allows for rapid development, scalability, security and costs.

The tech stack combines the front and back-end aspects of software development. If you’re non-tech CEO, you may ask: what tech stack will give the highest delivery speed? What can be scalable and fast for turnaround at the same time? Which advantages and disadvantages do different tech stacks have? What are investors’ stop points in the tech stack of the product? ProCoders have gathered our experience and value points in our article! Read further to find answers to your questions and possible tips for making the right decision.

What Role in Startup Success does Tech Stack Play?

The tech stack will determine the project’s technical capabilities, the possibility of changing its basic features, and future scalability. Each tech stack has its limitations, and when choosing it, you should remember this and understand which areas of development your business will not need.

For example: WordPress makes it impossible to make complicate tables because you can’t merge cells. It seems a trifle, but if you are ever going to post a lot of statistical data and tables on your pages, this will cause you trouble.

Remember: each technical solution has such nuances, small or significant. That is why it is essential to understand what kind of project you are going to do and that you cannot just choose a smart solution “which is equally good for everything” because there are no such solutions.

In addition, using the right technology stack for startups makes adding modern dynamic features and functionality easy as your business grows. For instance, with mobile banking apps, you can spend a lot of money on native development or opt for a budget-saving and optimal cross-platform development.

Top 5 Tech Stacks for Startups in 2023

We at ProCoders mostly work with the next tech stacks on our clients’ projects: 

MEAN Tech Stack

MEAN is one of the most popular JavaScript-based tech stacks for startups for building web applications. MEAN consists of frameworks and tools involved:

• M – MongoDB (NoSQL Database),
• E – Express.js (Back-end Web Framework)
• A – Angular.js (Interface Rendering)
• N – Node.js (Open Source Cross-Platform Server)

Similar to LAMP, MEAN’s components can be replaced. Since all its components are written in JavaScript, an application created with MEAN can be built around a single programming language for both front-end and back-end environments. Because of this, a front-end web developer for hire can easily understand the server-side code.

Advantages of MEAN Tech Stack

• Highly flexible and сost-effective
• Easy workflow management between clients and servers.
• Excellent for real-time web applications
• Supports MVC pattern

Disadvantages of MEAN Tech Stack

• Problems with concurrent execution and performance at scale caused by JavaScript’s nature
• Poor separation of business logic from the server
• No specific JS coding guidelines
• Not recommended for large-scale apps

MERN Tech Stack

MERN is one of the variants of the MEAN stack, where AngularJS has been replaced with React. One of the most important benefits of using this tech stack is its ability to let you use React’s powerful library on both servers and browsers. It provides developers of all skill levels with a great deal of opportunity to work on a product.

Advantages of MERN Tech Stack

• UI layer rendering and performance
• Easier learning curve
• Because of its virtual DOM implementation, it performs better
• Used for building single-page applications
• It’s cost-effective

Disadvantages of MERN Tech Stack

• React has some bugs that make coding it harder than it should be

We at ProCoders have a lot of experience with this stack, and we can tell, that despite this small inconvenience it is still a solid choice for many startups. And if you feel interested, we have s guide on how to hire MERN developers, where you can find all information required for a smooth hiring process.

Flutter Tech Stack

Flutter is a web stack technology for cross-platform development. If your startup will be based on a mobile application and it will be your main product, then we at ProCoders recommend Flutter technology more often than others. Flutter uses the Dart programming language. The components of Flutter include Dart and the Flutter engine (primarily implemented in C++), Foundation Library, and design-specific frameworks.

Advantages of Flutter Tech Stack

• More accessible updates across multiple platforms, such as iOS and Android
• Ready UI design and elements
• It has a vast and powerful community
• Fast time-to-market

Disadvantages of Flutter Stack

• Limited tools and libraries
• Not a good choice for applications that require platform-specific features
• Weak iOS features support

Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Ruby on Rails is a backend framework. It pairs well with frontend JS frameworks (e.g., Vue.js). RoR makes it easy to create lightweight apps with great flexibility. Modern companies like GitHub, Shopify, Etsy, and Airbnb use the RoR startup technology stack.

Advantages of RoR

• Free, open-source, and time efficient
• A large number of helpful tools and libraries are available
• Highly scalable and can be integrated with MySQL

Disadvantages of RoR

• Lack of flexibility

5 Factors to Consider when Choosing Your Startup Tech Stack

Project founders can choose from many technology stacks when selecting the best technology stack for a startup. When choosing tech stacks for our clients during the Discovery phase, ProCoders consider such factors:

Scalability

You need to consider scalability when choosing your tech stack because it is one of the most important factors in determining whether or not your company will grow into a successful business and whether or not it will be able to adapt to changing circumstances.

Scalability is “expanding or increasing without growing weaker or losing integrity”. In other words, as your company grows, your app should be able to handle more users, more traffic, and more data without having any problems.

If you want your startup to be scalable, then you need to make sure that your technology stack can meet all of these criteria:

• Easily customizable, you can change features and functionality as needs change over time.
• It is easy for other company developers to work with, so they don’t need to spend too much time learning new things before they can start working productively.
• It is easy for new employees who join the company later on down the road to learn about it (especially if they come from another industry).

Costs

The most crucial factor to consider when choosing a language, framework or platform is how expensive it will be. However, founders should also consider these technologies’ ongoing maintenance costs and security risks.

Developer salaries would be included in this budget. Popular, well-known technologies like HTML, Swift, JavaScript, and PHP are known to many developers and can help lower costs. 

Security

Security should be at the top of your startup’s list of considerations when choosing your technology. Here are some ways to make sure your tech stack is secure:

1. Choose a platform tested and vetted by experts in the field.
2. Look for security features built into each stack layer — not just at the application layer but also at the database and network levels.
3. Make sure your platform is compatible with other applications you might use down the road; this will save you time when building integrations with third parties later. 

Time-to-Market

Time-to-market is a measurement of how long it takes for an idea to become a product. It’s also known as development cycle time or lead time. It’s an important metric because it determines how fast you can get feedback on your ideas and iterate on them before launching them into the market.

For example, if you have a new software application that takes three months to develop, but the competition has an application that takes one month to develop, then it would make sense for you to use the faster tool to have a competitive advantage over them.

Maintenance

The maintenance of the app depends on the underlying codebase and software architecture. Therefore, choosing programming languages or frameworks that use short, reusable codes and support reusability and scalability is essential.

Commercial Benefits of Choosing the Right Tech Stack for Your Startup

Here are some commercial benefits of choosing the best tech stack for a startup:

• Increased customer retention rates. The more secure and reliable your product is, the more likely people will stick around after signing up. You don’t have time for customer service issues when you’re working on scaling up!
• Lower costs. This one is obvious. If your company spends less time building and maintaining its infrastructure, it has more resources available for other areas of growth and development – and that’s good news.
• Increased security. A secure system ensures that confidential information stays confidential and that hackers can’t steal it.

Drawbacks of Choosing the Wrong Tech Stack for Your Startup

If you choose the wrong tech stack, some challenges may appear: 

• Challenge 1. When developers use a technology for your startup that is not widely used, finding another developer with experience may be difficult and will take time. It can result in losing time to market and additional costs.
• Challenge 2. Fixing bugs can be time-consuming and annoying for your developers.
• Challenge 3. Scalability can also be an issue – some technologies cannot quickly adapt to larger-scale processes.

Tech Stacks used by Top Platforms 2022

Among the many challenges of creating new technology, one way to succeed is by looking at what industry leaders are doing – how they grew up, scaled and succeed with their tech stacks. Reading about how others chose their startup tech stack can give clues about your project needs, and exploring the logic behind those choices will help you make better decisions for your startup. So let’s take a look at some popular companies which use tech stacks (and you can use the same ones):

• Instagram – JS, Nginx, Python, React, Redis, Django, Objective-C, Cassandra
• Facebook – PHP, React, GraphQL, Cassandra, Flux, Hydra, Presto
• Airbnb – Java, MySQL, JavaScript, Java, Redis, Hadoop, Ruby, GitHub
• Spotify — Python, Nginx, Bootstrap, Java, PostgreSQL, Amazon S3, Cassandra, Hadoop, BigQuery
• Netflix – Python, Node.js. React, MySQL, Flask, Oracle, Amazon SES, GitHub, Apache Mesos, Cassandra, AWS, GSuite

How We Assist in Choosing Tech Stack in ProCoders

To successfully select the technology stack for your startup, ProCoders can offer you a Discovery phase service. ProCoders will draw up a development plan and project implementation plan at this stage for your startup exclusively. This so-called roadmap will show your project’s creation and its development steps. You should consider the Discovery phase as the first step of your project, where you figure out precisely what you need to do and how much it will cost.

As for the cost, with the help of the Discovery phase, we try to estimate it as accurately as possible, but you should understand that even in the most accurate measurements, errors may appear during the development process. However, by calculating approximate costs based on the information about the project, including its scope, budget, and timeline, we will show you how you can save resources and money.

Conclusion

Choosing the best technology stack is crucial for startups looking to grow beyond their initial phase and establish an efficient and scalable business model. It must represent the business vision in financial terms and specify how many resources are needed to achieve maximum performance.

The right technology stack can help businesses develop products and operations more efficiently. In 2023, the most relevant tech stacks will be these:

1. LAMP Tech Stack
2. MERN Tech Stack
3. Flutter Tech Stack
4. MEAN Tech Stack
5. Ruby on Rails

Many types of technology stacks are available for choosing the framework upon which a project will be built. But several factors should influence your decision-making process:

• Scalability
• Costs
• Security
• Time-to-Market
• Maintenance

There are several commercial benefits to choosing the right tech stack for your startup. The main thing is that stacks make it easier to develop and build your product with minimal hassle. Also, the best full-tech stack can help you develop your app from scratch and quickly get it up and running.

To successfully select a technology stack, the ProCoders offer you a Discovery phase. The Discovery Phase is the first step of your project, where we gather all information about the startup and determine precisely what needs to be done and how much it will cost. Feel that you need it? Contact us today!