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Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

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Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

#1

Post by boredChimp »

Ask: Looking for thoughts and opinions on good tech stack options for side projects. Looking to build a web app for a small niche - very small user base (Some initial ideas below.

Code Stack: In no particular order, was starting to look into Ruby/Rails, Python/Django, Elixir/Phoenix. Some of the new Rails 7 stuff and hotwire seem interesting. Have past python experience, but never worked in Django. Elixir seems like cool new tech.

Data: Postgres vs MySql - both seem feasible for the job.

Hosting: I've never worked with a VPS before, but maybe a something like Digital Ocean or Heroku would be good value.

Thoughts and opinions are welcome and appreciated! Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

#4

Post by xeckr »

Have you tried the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node)? If you expect traffic to be relatively low and the app is simple, I'd even forgo MongoDB in favour of a dead-simple JSON file. I'd put it all on an AWS Lightsail instance to save as much money as possible. You could also look into self-hosting if you live close to your user base.

Re: Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

#5

Post by boredChimp »

xeckr wrote: post #4

Have you tried the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node)? If you expect traffic to be relatively low and the app is simple, I'd even forgo MongoDB in favour of a dead-simple JSON file. I'd put it all on an AWS Lightsail instance to save as much money as possible. You could also look into self-hosting if you live close to your user base.

Great thoughts. Actually I could host this on an RPi as I’m close in proximity to the user base. Lightsail is very interesting, I’ll take a look.

Is MERN stack still in demand?

Re: Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

#8

Post by boredChimp »

meowtastic wrote: post #6

Astro SSR web app, Tailwind, and Drizzle ORM. Use Postgres. Both hosted on a single Hetzner instance for about $6/month. I've tried Django, C#/Blazor, React/Go+Gin, Next.js, none came close.

Never heard of Astro but looks nice. When you say none came close, in terms of what? Performance? Simplicity? Value? Dev experience? All the above?

Re: Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

#9

Post by xeckr »

boredChimp wrote: post #5
xeckr wrote: post #4

Have you tried the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node)? If you expect traffic to be relatively low and the app is simple, I'd even forgo MongoDB in favour of a dead-simple JSON file. I'd put it all on an AWS Lightsail instance to save as much money as possible. You could also look into self-hosting if you live close to your user base.

Great thoughts. Actually I could host this on an RPi as I’m close in proximity to the user base. Lightsail is very interesting, I’ll take a look. Is MERN stack still in demand?

>Is MERN stack still in demand?

For getting a job? Express is probably less common in enterprise, but since the whole stack is JS/TS you'll have no problem porting your knowledge from that to any of the newer server-side frameworks. React is to my knowledge still the most widely used framework in modern front-end development.

Regarding self-hosting, make sure you look into isolating the RPi you use to serve your app from the rest of your home network as much as possible, and change the default password.

Re: Ask HN: Best/Simplest Stack for Side Projects

#10

Post by meowtastic »

boredChimp wrote: post #8
meowtastic wrote: post #6

Astro SSR web app, Tailwind, and Drizzle ORM. Use Postgres. Both hosted on a single Hetzner instance for about $6/month. I've tried Django, C#/Blazor, React/Go+Gin, Next.js, none came close.

Never heard of Astro but looks nice. When you say none came close, in terms of what? Performance? Simplicity? Value? Dev experience? All the above?

Performance and dev experience yes. Simplicity-wise I guess one could argue that Django takes the crown as long as you're okay with the compromises you have to make. I not sure what you mean by value, if it's cost of hosting the service then I'd say yes again because it requires less resources than all the other alternatives.
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