Jimmy Gitonga

Without a doubt, you will want PostgreSQL as a database. I imagine that the analytics will become important with time so that you can track activity around the video consumption.

Django is a batteries included and it will help you get to MVP quickly. Once you have settled on the functionality that you need for the chat and video application, you can then build a leaner, custom app with FastAPI. Next.js is a good frontend framework. Depending on how good you are in front-end engineering, you can also look at SvelteKit which works better in using HTML5 web standards and is less bulky that Next.js. Both are supported by Vercel, so they will be around for some time as technologies.

You have two choices really. Either you go with a full JavaScript stack. This would be Angular on NodeJS or React with Apollo at the front end and GraphQL Yoga and Prisma on Postgresql at the back end. Your Web API here is GraphQL.

The other option is a mixed JavaScript and Python stack. I would start with React with Apollo for the GraphQL API talking to Graphene and Django on Postresql. I would later build in Flask once I know exactly what I want my business logic to look like and there is more time.

I would prefer the Python backend because it makes going into Machine Learning and AI at some point easier than on a JavaScript backend.

In a nut shell, I mix DO droplets with AWS S3 storage. I have found this to be the most cost effective in my line of work. Azure's strategy is enterprise and unless you are a heavy into the Microsoft ecosystem, personally I have not found a reason to look in that direction yet.

Since you have a JavaScript stack, I would stick with DO. Any other Cloud provider would mean you fiddling with the infrastructure of the stack for your JS projects.

I am part of another firm that where we split our stacks, React/Django and Vue/Laravel. While I am in charge of the React/Django, my co-founder who uses the Vue/Laravel stack swears by Vue. I would urge that you look at using Vue since you are asking to add it to an existing Laravel Project. The learning curve is lower than that of React in my own experience.

I use Sublime Text because of how well it is built. I like the way it was marketed, especially coming from BBEdit and TextMate. I felt compelled to get the license, not just following the herd 😉. And suddenly my interest in the community grew. Yes, there are other text editors that have come up recently, some with serious corporate muscle behind them. But I have not found anything yet that Sublime Text does not have as a package. If I need anything that the community doesn't have, I can code it.