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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 (<100 initially), no expectation that it would ever scale into something big. Data-driven app with User authentication. The app would have a few pages of different data views, but nothing too fancy. This is more or less a hobby project to scratch my own itch. I expect it to never make money, so want to be cognizant of hosting costs as well. I'm also using this as an opportunity to learn some new tech rather than sticking with what I know (Azure, .NET, Sql Server, Angular, C#). 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! |
If you don’t expect to have scalability or real-time needs, I would not really recommend Elixir/Phoenix. The core language, dev tools, docs, and OTP are best-in-class, but there’s a learning curve, and the ecosystem has less mindshare than Python and Ruby.
I personally prefer Python/Django with htmx for client-side interactivity (if you need it), but if you want something better-integrated out of the box, you can’t go wrong with Ruby/Rails/Hotwire either.
Using a VPS is cheap and initially simple, but keep in mind you have to do more setup and maintenance on the OS, Web server, database, etc. yourself. I’ve had a great experience with DigitalOcean VPSs in the past, but for the app I’m building now, I am leaning toward using their managed app platform to minimize sysadmin/infra work on my part.