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april, 2025
How to Choose
a Tech Stack
for a Long-Living Project
“Should we go with Django or FastAPI? React or Vue? Node or Go?” — at first glance, choosing a stack seems like a matter of preference. But in long-term projects, it’s a strategic decision. It affects not just development, but also maintainability, scalability, hiring, stability, and total cost of ownership.
This article outlines what to focus on when selecting a tech stack for a project designed to last for years — no hype, just practical reasoning.
It's Not About the Technology — It's About Its Implications
Set aside the hype, and you’ll find that most popular stacks get the job done. But some lead to stable growth, while others accumulate technical debt.
Java + Spring Boot is often seen as heavy and “enterprisey.” But for long-term development, it’s stable, well-documented, has a mature ecosystem, and a broad talent pool. For a microservice-heavy architecture, that’s a strong advantage.
Go is ideal for those prioritizing performance and simple deployment — especially when working with many small, isolated services.
Node.js (particularly with NestJS) works well for fast-moving teams using a full JS stack. It’s beginner-friendly, has extensive library support, and integrates smoothly with CI/CD. However, without architectural discipline, scaling can become difficult — especially in terms of type safety and long-term support.
Go is ideal for those prioritizing performance and simple deployment — especially when working with many small, isolated services.
Node.js (particularly with NestJS) works well for fast-moving teams using a full JS stack. It’s beginner-friendly, has extensive library support, and integrates smoothly with CI/CD. However, without architectural discipline, scaling can become difficult — especially in terms of type safety and long-term support.
Not Everything New Is Useful
Svelte, SolidJS, Deno, Rust in web — all sound exciting. But when your project runs for years, resilience matters more than novelty.
Take Svelte, for instance: it’s fast and concise, but its ecosystem and developer pool are smaller than React’s. That means onboarding new team members can be slower and more expensive.
Maturity isn’t about age — it’s about API stability, update frequency, documentation quality, and community activity.
Maturity isn’t about age — it’s about API stability, update frequency, documentation quality, and community activity.
Scalability Isn’t Just About Server Load
When most people think “scaling,” they think infrastructure. But there are two other dimensions:
- Team scalability — how quickly you can onboard new developers
- Code scalability — how easily you can test, maintain, and ship in small batches
A Django or Laravel monolith can be great at the start. But without modularity, API separation, or CI/CD, the project often depends on the one person who “knows how it works.”
A solid stack assumes:
A solid stack assumes:
- feature-branch development
- automated deployment via GitHub Actions or GitLab CI
- containerized environments using Docker
- monitoring via Prometheus + Grafana or Sentry
Entry Barrier Is an Underrated Factor
Very few projects are maintained by a single developer. Even with clean architecture, someone else will eventually handle it. The simpler the stack, the less pain down the road.
Python + FastAPI, for example, is a great combo: fast to write, readable, easy to test, strong typing via Pydantic. Not the fastest runtime, but one of the most developer-friendly.
Node + NestJS also offers a balance: structured architecture, TypeScript, dependency injection. A good fit for frontend-heavy teams moving into backend development.
If a stack takes three months to learn, it’s a bad choice for a fast-scaling team. Time is a limited resource.
Node + NestJS also offers a balance: structured architecture, TypeScript, dependency injection. A good fit for frontend-heavy teams moving into backend development.
If a stack takes three months to learn, it’s a bad choice for a fast-scaling team. Time is a limited resource.
Context Matters More Than Ideology
Sometimes teams choose stacks based on what they “always use.” This may be convenient, but not always rational.
Writing a Telegram bot in Java? Overkill. A real-time game in PHP? Unusual, at best.
The right choice is driven by the task — not habit.
Consider:
The right choice is driven by the task — not habit.
Consider:
- where the project will be hosted
- what it needs to integrate with
- the client’s existing tech stack
- release, security, and failover processes
Examples of Sustainable Stacks
-
Enterprise projects, microservices
Java/Kotlin + Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, ELK, Grafana -
Simple web apps
Python + Django, React, PostgreSQL, Docker, Sentry -
API-first products & startups
Node.js + NestJS, MongoDB, Redis, TypeScript, GitHub Actions -
High-load systems
Go, gRPC, ClickHouse, NATS, Prometheus -
SPA frontends
React (or Vue 3) + TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind, React Query, Zustand or Redux Toolkit
A good stack is the one that doesn’t get in your way.
It doesn’t demand rewrites every year. It doesn’t rely on one team genius. It just works — and lets the product grow.
It doesn’t demand rewrites every year. It doesn’t rely on one team genius. It just works — and lets the product grow.
If your team isn’t debating stack choices every three months — you probably made the right one.