
Ask HN: What’s your preferred stack for early stage startups? - riwasabi
Many people say Ruby on Rails is the preferred choice for startups because it helps you move faster. I wonder what other people’s experiences have been, though.<p>By early stage startup I mean the following: 1) no revenue; 2) solo developer; 3) no product-market fit (need to change rapidly).<p>Coming from a JAMStack, my initially thought is that Rails gives you many problems you shouldn’t have to deal with at early stage: managing serves and databases, performance considerations, costs, etc.<p>If you use something like Firebase + Next.js, you can basically focus on developing your product (no infrastructure work needed) and have zero costs until you have hundreds (or even thousands) of users.<p>It feels like a much better options for startups, so I wonder if I’m missing something here. How’s your experience with web frameworks for early stage startups? Is there a way to have zero costs using something like Rails or Django?
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jmnicolas
The Boring Stack ™

> So, what is The Boring Stack?

> It’s whatever stack you already know so long as that stack is capable of
> completing the interesting thing that you want to build.

[https://hackernoon.com/the-boring-stack-the-best-way-to-
buil...](https://hackernoon.com/the-boring-stack-the-best-way-to-build-
interesting-things-9f54420f683e)

[https://medium.com/@aevitas/why-you-should-build-your-
next-a...](https://medium.com/@aevitas/why-you-should-build-your-next-app-on-
a-boring-stack-7e7d763ba15f)

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jaredcwhite
"managing serves and databases"

I can spin up a new Rails-based set of droplets (aka VPSes) on DigitalOcean in
about 30 minutes with some shell scripts, so that's not really an issue for an
early stage startup IMHO. I've used Next.js and while it's nice as a way to
bootstrap a React app, I would _never_ use it to quickly build a robust
startup product as a solopreneur. I would also never use a single data store
platform like Firebase over using good ol' PostgreSQL + Redis.

Majestic monolith frameworks such as Rails and related proven architecture
have never let me down in 12+ years of web app development…whereas I've been
bitten many times by attempting to use the latest hotness because of a
mythical future where it will have been worth that effort!

~~~
riwasabi
Thanks for your reply. Please, can you further explain why you wouldn't use
Next.js or Firebase for building a product as a solopreneur? Maybe because I
don't have much experience with Rails but I'm still failing to understand how
it's much better in your opinion.

Also, I think Digital Ocean doesn't have a free tier. That's my other point: I
can't find a reliable, fast way to try out new ideas spending literally $0
using something like Rails. That's pretty easy to do using JAMStack, though.

~~~
jaredcwhite
These days, Rails 6 and various related gems is like a superpower…providing so
much standard web app functionality out of the box that I can simply focus on
what makes my product unique. The amount of "yak shaving" (aka futzing with
the tech stack itself) is cut to bare minimum.

DigitalOcean starts at $5/month. Not much more than $0. :)

~~~
jaredcwhite
Not to mention the joys of programming in Ruby much of the time…an extra
benefit!

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ceolin
Tbh, I often wonder the same thing. I've been using the Next.js + Firebase +
Zeit stack lately and I can tell you: it's been a great experience so far.
It's really easy to manage, especially as a solo dev.

As "jmnicolas" mentioned, though, I think "The Boring Stack" is often the best
choice. Don't spend too much time on what the "thought leaders" on Twitter
saying. Just use whatever makes you move faster to get shit done. Once you
have some paying customers, you can always go back and change things.

I think the most important thing as a solo dev is just understanding what your
possible customers need. You can do that using whatever tools work for you.

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a_band
I wrote a post about this recently: [https://dev.to/levinunnink/how-to-pick-
the-right-tech-stack-...](https://dev.to/levinunnink/how-to-pick-the-right-
tech-stack-for-your-startup-4cgo)

I'm pretty sold on JAMStack + Serverless + AWS. It's the most affordable way
to iterate, adapt and scale for a solo dev.

~~~
databrecht
Interesting, you might want to check out FaunaDB if you like the Serverless
idea. Disclaimer: I work there but stumbled on your article after my hours.

