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T3 Stack (Next.js, Typescript, Tailwind, tRPC, Prisma) with Postgresql (Supabase is a good free choice), deployed on Vercel w/ Github Actions. These give you the ability to iterate rapidly and the best choice in the market imho. https://create.t3.gg/
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I'd probably go with NextJS and Pocketbase[0]. I like to start with everything on a single instance/machine, cheaper and less overhead, allows me to focus more on building things rather than ops.
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Appwrite
Appwrite - The Open Source Firebase alternative introduces iOS support . Appwrite is an open source backend server that helps you build native iOS applications much faster with realtime APIs for authentication, databases, files storage, cloud functions and much more!
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4. Wasp (https://wasp-lang.dev) because it's the fastest way to build a full-stack React + NodeJS web app. You can build a prod ready proof of concept in a couple hours. E.g. Google OAuth2 is configurable in ~ 10 lines of code --> here's proof: https://youtube.com/shorts/-daNTYiUC64?feature=share
(disclaimer: I'm the guy in the Video :):):):):)
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I'm surprised nobody has mentioned https://redwoodjs.com
Here's why I'd pick it:
1. One language for the whole stack. It's an MVP so the front and back are both changing fast, with changes made by the same person, and you don't want to context switch all the time.
1a. Javascript as that language because it's the most flexible. And with TypeScript you can gradually opt into type constraints where they help you.
2. An opinionated full stack like Ruby on Rails that integrates all the pieces I need to ship. When you assemble yourself, even small version bumps or outdated tutorials can send you down a rabbit hole, stealing time from testing PMF. You want someone to validate a combination in which all the pieces work together smoothly.
2a. Redwood.js closest to be being the Ruby on Rails of JavaScript. I've toyed with it before and got up and running quickly. Its opinions took a lot of unimportant decisions out of my hands and let me focus on what I was trying to produce. I didn't get so far as to confirm this but it also seems to make it easy to gradually drop the scaffolding if the opinions and simplifications ever get in your way.
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Nowadays, Django has an amazing library which is a lot like FastAPI but in the Django ecosystem.
https://django-ninja.rest-framework.com/
It's absolutely wonderful. I would use that in a MVP, and do the F/E in NextJS + Typescript.
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Directus
The Modern Data Stack 🐰 — Directus is an instant REST+GraphQL API and intuitive no-code data collaboration app for any SQL database.
Directus connected to a Postgres database
Comes with a built-in low-config UI/API for CRUD on the database, and easily extendable with Vue.js and Express endpoints.
Additionally, should the need arise for something more custom later on, all your data is in Postgres rather than a backend as a service
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I've had an unparalleled experience in getting an MVP live with shuttle[0] - nothing is as fast for deploying a web app with a database to the cloud. For the database I’ve used shuttle’s dedicated SQL DB instance[1] and for the front-end I’ve used shuttle’s static file server[2].
If you are not scared of diving a bit into Rust, I'd a 100% recommend it.
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Sonar
Write Clean JavaScript Code. Always.. Sonar helps you commit clean code every time. With over 300 unique rules to find JavaScript bugs, code smells & vulnerabilities, Sonar finds the issues while you focus on the work.
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For something in the same vein but for Go, there is Encore: https://encore.dev / https://github.com/encoredev/encore
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I do! Clojure and Pedestal https://github.com/pedestal/pedestal work great for quick MVPs. Clojurescript with a nice HMR environment like Figwheel https://figwheel.org/ is also great if you need a front end.
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Hasura
Blazing fast, instant realtime GraphQL APIs on your DB with fine grained access control, also trigger webhooks on database events.
I've been pretty deep in backend engineering a while, but despite that I strongly try to use Hasura [0] whenever I can. IME backend engineering isn't a differentiator, and I've written enough REST/GraphQL endpoints/tests/blahblahblah. I think Django and Rails are amazing, but if I ever have to use them again I'll probably sigh deep and resign myself to sadness.
On top it's probably Tailwind, and if it's just me I'd use Svelte, but if it's more than just me I'd use React.
[0]: https://hasura.io
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Depends on exactly what I'm making, the answer is probably different if I'm making like a chat app or something more data centric.
For something really minimal, an internal tool, I'd probably use grist. Grist is a "no code" spreadsheet program that is open source and works on a relational database. I just threw together an inventory management system for my weekly dnd group in a few minutes, and I've shared it with the group. I find the relational mindset grist uses a lot easier to reason about than traditional spreadsheets.
The next level up would be django with htmx. Very minimal javascript, I might embed a javascript "applet" like a map into it if needed. This covers 99% of data driven apps.
If I wanted to build something like say discord I'd probably use a pretty similar stack for the MVP, but with server-sent-events (htmx with server sent events is nice) and web components for more complicated interactions. That's probably why I'm not in charge for building complicated single page webapps with a lot of interdependent state though. I maintain this approach should work but haven't had a real chance to test it in the wild.
If I'm writing CAD software I'm probably going with QT/python/(numpy/jax/compute-shaders/sympy/etc). Python might not be the fastest, but when you're accelerating it with one of those machine learning libraries it can be really powerful. I've actually been working on something CAD-ish using that stack here: https://github.com/traverseda/PySdfScad
That's probably roughly the same stack I'd use for things like computer vision, machine learning, etc. Ironically anything where performance is important I'd probably choose python over a compiled language.
Mind you the QT python documentation is really not great, for a really minimal MVP I might swap qt out for pyimgui which is amazing for rapid prototyping but is going to be a real pain to do things like syntax highlight a text editor or embed HTML content.
Embedded electronics? Probably micropython on an ESP32 for an MVP. A REPL on your microcontroller is really nice. Robotics I'd probably use buildroot to build a custom linux distro.
I don't have much experience with mobile development, so I'd probably end up using QT with python and pyqtdeploy, but that's not an approach I'd recommend anyone else follow. I'm keeping an eye on Tauri in that space, although I really wish they made it easier to bundle in things that aren't single page javascript web apps (like a python application).
So yeah, mostly I'd use python. Master of some trades, jack of a bunch of others, it's flexible and powerful enough that I feel happy to have specialized in it, even if deploying apps to end users can be finicky and annoying. I'd avoid the javascript ecosystem as much as possible, and where I'd have to use javascript I'd prefer to make self-contained web components.
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microfeed
a lightweight cms self-hosted on cloudflare, for podcasts, blogs, photos, videos, documents, and curated urls.
i’ve been using django/postgres for over a decade. if it were 5 years ago, i’d use django/postgres.
but recently i would use cloudflare pages, r2, d1, zero trust… in many cases, we don’t want to put eggs in the same basket. but in some cases (eg, building mvp, toy projects…), it’s convenient to be on an all-in-one platform .
for example, i recently launched a cms entirely on cloudflare: https://www.microfeed.org/
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hilla
The modern frontend framework for Java backends. Build fast reactive web apps with full type safety. Powered by Lit and Spring Boot. Built by Vaadin.
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Sharetribe
Sharetribe Go is a source available marketplace software, also available as a hosted, no-code SaaS product. For a headless, API-first marketplace solution, check out Sharetribe Flex: https://www.sharetribe.com/flex.
> For an MVP, I'd choose what I'm most familiar with and can be fastest with.
That is absolutely the takeaway here. Use the technology you are familiar with and/or can be fastest with. MVPs are risky enough, don't add in "oh, gosh, I have to learn the tech (libraries, deployments, monitoring, database access, etc)" as well.
The only case where I'd pick a new tech for an MVP is when there is an existing open source or free project that I could use that would obviously get the project shipped faster by providing extensive pre-built functionality.
For example, I once used Sharetribe https://github.com/sharetribe/sharetribe even though I was only an intermediate ruby programmer because, after time spent evaluating it and other solutions, it had functionality that could get us shipped faster.
From "git init" to our first beta customer was 1 month of time. Then to our first paying customer was 1 more month. One developer (me). To be fair, my co-founder had done a ton of market development before I started coding, so the initial market/feature discovery was done; that's a huge part of any MVP.
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My first choice if the product is a good fit would be old school Django deployed to a single VPS (no docker). I am creating a public starter kit that does exactly that, including the deployment part: https://stribny.github.io/sidewinder/
However, there are lots of use cases that would call for additional SPA (Vue/Nuxt), or other tech. So in that case I'd add it or replace the tech stack entirely. I'd probably avoid specialized cloud services, might consider something like https://supabase.com tho if the app doesn't need a complex backend.
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My first choice if the product is a good fit would be old school Django deployed to a single VPS (no docker). I am creating a public starter kit that does exactly that, including the deployment part: https://stribny.github.io/sidewinder/
However, there are lots of use cases that would call for additional SPA (Vue/Nuxt), or other tech. So in that case I'd add it or replace the tech stack entirely. I'd probably avoid specialized cloud services, might consider something like https://supabase.com tho if the app doesn't need a complex backend.
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inertia
Inertia.js lets you quickly build modern single-page React, Vue and Svelte apps using classic server-side routing and controllers.
one thing I'd like to see in Django is something similar to InertiaJS [1], just being able to use VueJS for the view layer is amazing and passing data from the backend to the frontend without having to build complex api systems is a godsend. Maybe I haven't done enough research but is there something similar in Django world ?
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This is the correct answer. It's quite shocking how many Django and Laravel answers there are in this thread. Performance and type safety appear to be completely irrelevant to HN.
You should take a look at Vite (https://vitejs.dev/) for a Vue development environment, if you haven't already.
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Nothing really beats Rails. Use something like Jumpstart (jumpstartrails.com) and Avo (https://avohq.io) and you scaffold a full consumer-ready app in literally a few hours.
The thing that bugs me the most with Next.JS and the whole JAMStack movement is that, yeah, you get from "git clone" to deployed on Vercel in two minutes, but if you need to create real app features like a sturdy admin, accounts, authorization, proper asset management, CI/CD, it takes a whole lotta time. I'm not even touching the most common app features.
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While I prefer python for everything else, I'd go with Laravel Jetstream[1] for an MVP, just like I did with the last one I had to build. It's laravel, you can use Vue (React or Svelte) for your views instead of the blade templating language that comes with the framework. Jetstream also comes with Auth, user login and subscription and other useful stuff.
And for the flavor, I'd just go with DaisyUI[2] again, since it's based on tailwindcss and it's what I've been using lately.
In my experience, I can build MVPs real fast with the stack described above.
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Fresh, with Strapi to help bootstrap a backend, but eventually migrating all to Deno when the budgets permit.
https://github.com/Hyprtxt/fresh-strapi.deno.dev
This site uses the framework, but not Strapi: https://videopoker.academy
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Joystick [1] using MongoDB as the primary database. Run a few instances on VPS and then a load balancer in front. This is how I run my site [2] following a massive amount of headaches and random downtime fighting w/ a k8s cluster. Zero downtime since I moved it over in October.
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Totally agree! For almost all web-based MVPs the PETAL Stack (Phoenix with LiveView & TailwindCSS) deployed to FREE Fly.io is an epic choice for both response times, realtime features, dev speed (time to market). We're currently building our MVP with it and it's fully Open Source so anyone can learn from our journey: https://github.com/dwyl/mvp
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Angular-Full-Stack
Angular Full Stack project built using Angular, Express, Mongoose and Node. Whole stack in TypeScript.
It depends on the MVP, but I'd (still?) use the MEAN stack with the latest Angular and Node. Expecially because I made a boilerplate [1] that allows me to start any project faster.
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CUA
create-universal-app(CUA) is an opinionated template for creating fullstack universal apps (Expo, Next, tRPC, Prisma, Clerk, Solito, Tamagui)
I'd likely go for a mobile first approach and start with:
create-universal-app : https://github.com/chen-rn/CUA
Which would give me:
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pothos
Pothos GraphQL is library for creating GraphQL schemas in typescript using a strongly typed code first approach
- tRPC
But I'd likely throw out Clerk a cheaper option:
- Supertokens, and also since Supertokens is easy (lots of enthusiastic reports about it), has a managed solution (which is cheaper than the alternatives), is secure and scalable (rotating refresh tokens with JWTs), open source, has magic links, and the architecture of Supertokens would allow me to simply and quickly eject to self-hosting it if/when I'd eventually need to (if the app ever reaches mass-market scale).
And I might throw out tRPC for the equivalent GraphQL experience (esp. if business strategy dictates I need a 3rd party API):
- GQty.dev on the client, for inferred queries/mutations. For rapid dev speed. Simple code example: https://gqty.dev/docs/intro Then move to URQL or Relay at scale, or just skip GQty and go with URQL from the start (if scalability trumps dev speed).
- Pothos http://pothos-graphql.dev on the server, for auto building the schema from your TS code (aka. code-first). Better than Nexus (e.g. Max Stoiber moved from Nexus to Pothos on his Bedrock starter template because Pothos is best in class: https://bedrock.mxstbr.com/tools/pothos/ ).
And I might throw out NextJS (Webpack) for the equivalent experience in Vite:
- vite-plugin-ssr, since both architectural control (libraries > frameworks) and Vite rocks. I'd likely then have to make solito-vite https://github.com/nandorojo/solito/discussions/157 to have a unified navigation between React Native and Web, but Solito is allegely tiny, so recreating it should be doable.
(If doing all of these replacements, maybe starting from scratch would be easier than modifying create-universal-app ... That said, I think if someone made a starter repo with the above choices it would be a real killer!)
Then I'd also likely use:
- Vercel (and try their Edge Functions, for a serverless sweet v8 isolates experience without slow cold starts), or maybe Cloudflare Workers (cheaper, slightly more hassle?) for hosting.
- Planetscale or Supabase for the DB. (Not brave enough to try EdgeDB or SurrealDB just yet, though EdgeDB is close..) Unless I had a specific use case where a more specialized/optimized DB would make sense.
This stack should stick even post-MVP, as it's not only optimized for a solo developer but for scalability.
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- tRPC
But I'd likely throw out Clerk a cheaper option:
- Supertokens, and also since Supertokens is easy (lots of enthusiastic reports about it), has a managed solution (which is cheaper than the alternatives), is secure and scalable (rotating refresh tokens with JWTs), open source, has magic links, and the architecture of Supertokens would allow me to simply and quickly eject to self-hosting it if/when I'd eventually need to (if the app ever reaches mass-market scale).
And I might throw out tRPC for the equivalent GraphQL experience (esp. if business strategy dictates I need a 3rd party API):
- GQty.dev on the client, for inferred queries/mutations. For rapid dev speed. Simple code example: https://gqty.dev/docs/intro Then move to URQL or Relay at scale, or just skip GQty and go with URQL from the start (if scalability trumps dev speed).
- Pothos http://pothos-graphql.dev on the server, for auto building the schema from your TS code (aka. code-first). Better than Nexus (e.g. Max Stoiber moved from Nexus to Pothos on his Bedrock starter template because Pothos is best in class: https://bedrock.mxstbr.com/tools/pothos/ ).
And I might throw out NextJS (Webpack) for the equivalent experience in Vite:
- vite-plugin-ssr, since both architectural control (libraries > frameworks) and Vite rocks. I'd likely then have to make solito-vite https://github.com/nandorojo/solito/discussions/157 to have a unified navigation between React Native and Web, but Solito is allegely tiny, so recreating it should be doable.
(If doing all of these replacements, maybe starting from scratch would be easier than modifying create-universal-app ... That said, I think if someone made a starter repo with the above choices it would be a real killer!)
Then I'd also likely use:
- Vercel (and try their Edge Functions, for a serverless sweet v8 isolates experience without slow cold starts), or maybe Cloudflare Workers (cheaper, slightly more hassle?) for hosting.
- Planetscale or Supabase for the DB. (Not brave enough to try EdgeDB or SurrealDB just yet, though EdgeDB is close..) Unless I had a specific use case where a more specialized/optimized DB would make sense.
This stack should stick even post-MVP, as it's not only optimized for a solo developer but for scalability.
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I'd run an API using Deno (https://deno.land), and consume that API with an SSR/SSG site built using Astro (https://astro.build). SCSS for styling, and probably just Vanilla JS (written in Typescript and compiled via Deno) — I increasingly find that unless my site is massively interactive, plain old Vanilla JS is totally sufficient.
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I'd run an API using Deno (https://deno.land), and consume that API with an SSR/SSG site built using Astro (https://astro.build). SCSS for styling, and probably just Vanilla JS (written in Typescript and compiled via Deno) — I increasingly find that unless my site is massively interactive, plain old Vanilla JS is totally sufficient.
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Assuming web app.
1. Python.
2. Flask. Pure server-rendered HTML, no fancy frontend. Avoid JS as long as I can, just use jinja templates. If my app is not going to work with good old HTML and CSS chances are it's not going to work at all.
3. Classless CSS framework. I like this: https://watercss.kognise.dev/.
4. Sqlite3 or Postgres. Prefer postgres because with docker it's 5 minutes to set up. I use SQLAlchemy from the start because it makes life easier. If you ever deploy and worry about real data you add alembic for migrations.
5. One docker compose for everything.
6. Cheap VPS for like $3 per month.
That's it. I would like to upgrade my MVP stack, but it's battle-tested and it works well. After the 9 to 5 I only have like 3 brain cells alive so I need to get stuff done as fast as possible, which means using what I know.
One thing I often reinvent and reimplement is OAuth. Definitely "Sign in with google" is the best way to add auth to your app, but it's such a pain to set up.
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MudBlazor
Blazor Component Library based on Material design with an emphasis on ease of use. Mainly written in C# with Javascript kept to a bare minimum it empowers .NET developers to easily debug it if needed.
Try navigating to the site for the Blazor material design library, MudBlazor, on a mobile browser:
As much as I want Blazor to work out well, those load times are too abysmal for me to seriously consider Blazor outside of internal apps.
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I mean I'm literally building an AWS lambda function that outputs HTML when it's called via API Gateway. So someone hits https://mydomain.com/mycoolpage, then the MyCoolPage AWS Lambda function is executed and outputs whatever.
If you're interested, I use https://middy.js.org/ as a middleware engine for my AWS lambda functions which I find helpful.
I use the open sourced serverless framework for doing deploys https://www.serverless.com/
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technology-stack
🚀 Detailed description + diagram of the Open Source Technology Stack we use for dwyl projects.
Totally agree that the learning curve can feel steep learning Functional Programming style, Elixir Syntax and Phoenix framework in one go. But if it’s any consolation, our company has taken people who only JS or Python and got them fully up-to-speed in less than a week using the open/free tutorials we’ve written: https://github.com/dwyl/technology-stack HN feedback very much welcome.
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cookiecutter-django
Cookiecutter Django is a framework for jumpstarting production-ready Django projects quickly.
djangox definitely looks a bit less opinionated and lighter weight than what I normally use for a starter project, which is cookiecutter-django: https://github.com/cookiecutter/cookiecutter-django
It seems to include most everything that djangox does, and a little bit more, and with cookiecutter's setup process, you can strip out much of what you don't want/need.
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learn-elixir
:droplet: Learn the Elixir programming language to build functional, fast, scalable and maintainable web applications!
That looks like a fantastic resource, especially appreciate the update you've provided here https://github.com/dwyl/learn-elixir/issues/102
I'll definitely have to keep at it and play around more, thanks!
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Nest
A progressive Node.js framework for building efficient, scalable, and enterprise-grade server-side applications on top of TypeScript & JavaScript (ES6, ES7, ES8) 🚀
I really like NestJS for backend. It has great tooling and generators. It's super fast to create a REST or GraphQL API. Adding WebSockets is a breeze if you need them. It uses TypeORM which is rock solid. Also, it includes unit and e2e tests and linting out of the box. Also, if you're doing your frontend in TypeScript it's trivial to share interfaces for "type safety" across the wire.
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The DB connection to Supabase can be made where ever you want it to be. It’s just JavaScript.
In Node, a “module” is generally scoped to a file. So you make a db.ts file and export the instance you create and it functions basically as a singleton. One DB connection per user per session. SvelteKit let’s you choose where to put that. The first place you import it is when it instantiates.
Auth in SvelteKit is trickier than it should be, but there’s a really good technique that I recommend you follow: https://www.captaincodeman.com/re-creating-the-sveltekit-ses...
I believe he uses firebase in his example. But don’t just copy paste, try to understand what is actually happening and why he had to do this workaround. Once you understand how SSR actually works, things get a lot easier.
Stores are a way of storing state on the client side, but to do SSR Svelte has to use stores on its “backend”. The key thing to understand is that stores that are used for SSR are server wide and persistent so you can’t store user specific data in them. There’s a special spot for that kind of state called events.locals.
It’s probably the trickiest area of SvelteKit IMO. I hope they make it better.
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If I were building an MVP today, my stack would likely include a web framework such as Django or Ruby on Rails for the backend, a React framework such as refine for the frontend, and a database such as PostgreSQL for data storage.
refine is React based for building CRUD app rapidly. Repo: https://github.com/refinedev/refine With refine You can build admin panel, dashboard, internal tolls, and any CRUD app rapidly
It eliminates the repetitive tasks demanded by CRUD operations and provides solutions for critical parts like authentication, access control, routing, networking, state management, and i18n.
It also has connectors for 15+ backend services including REST API, GraphQL, NestJs CRUD, Airtable, Strapi, Strapi v4, Strapi GraphQL, Supabase, Hasura, Nhost, Appwrite, Firebase.. So you can save a lot of time from development time.
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turbo
The speed of a single-page web application without having to write any JavaScript (by hotwired)
Hotwire is pretty new but there are some guides out there. it's a progressive enhancement thing generally so you build it normally and then sprinkle in the extra stuff.
1000 foot overview: https://boringrails.com/articles/thinking-in-hotwire-progres...
a tutorial: https://www.hotrails.dev/turbo-rails
a video tutorial: https://www.driftingruby.com/episodes/hotwire-introduction
probably a good paid option: https://pragmaticstudio.com/hotwire-rails
and then there is the main site: https://turbo.hotwired.dev/
cheers!
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InfluxDB
Access the most powerful time series database as a service. Ingest, store, & analyze all types of time series data in a fully-managed, purpose-built database. Keep data forever with low-cost storage and superior data compression.
