
Ask HN: What is a 'full stack' website? - greyfox
Hi i was browsing a separate ASK HN question and saw someone mention a full stack website, and i&#x27;ve heard of full stack devs but never a &#x27;full stack website&#x27;<p>is there a single composition of the components of a full stack website? Or does it vary?<p>Ask thread that mentions a full stack website: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16800510
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smt88
That term is unusual enough that I've never seen it.

So-called full-stack developers are people who build the back-end (server
side) as well as the user-facing front-end (client side). As far as I know, it
only refers to web development, so the client will usually be a browser or
native app.

Based on context, it seems like "full-stack website" means a website that has
some business logic on the back-end. This would be distinct from a static
site.

(A "static" site does technically have a back-end, but it would just be
serving flat HTML/JS/CSS files that are unmodified.)

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tylerhou
Do you have a link to provide context?

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greyfox
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16800510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16800510)

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therapeutic
I think the first comment in that thread is what you're referring to. I'd
hazard a guess that a "fullstack website" in this context means a site that is
written entirely in Javascript (ex. React for the frontend and Node.js for the
backend). The original thread question was looking for ways to improve
knowledge in Javascript, so building a site entirely in that language would
certainly be sufficient to give one an understanding of what you can do with
it,

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tylerhou
Since the commenter said "full-stack website with JS" I would assume that the
commenter intended "full-stack" to mean both backend and frontend. If he meant
"full-stack" to mean entirely Javascript there would be no reason to tack on
"with JS".

