Hello... I hope everyone is ok amid today's global situation.
I'm trying to choose the perfect stack for a new mobile app project that resembles the super apps like GoJek & Grab.
I have gone to BUILTWITH and seen what their stack on all fronts.....however, and even though, they both differ from one another, I'm still looking for the perfect stack that will give us PERFORMANCE & SCALABILITY for years to come.
Your comments & suggestions are very important to us, so please share your thoughts.
That's a really ambitious project. So you're going to want to move as quickly as possible. That means choosing a software stack that will allow you to move the most quickly. Of the ones you've listed, Ruby (Ruby on Rails, more precisely) will give you that. There are probably other options that would allow you to move even more quickly than Rails, but developers for those more advanced stacks are much more expensive, and hard to find.
Rails can and does scale to millions of users. It's not necessarily easy, but if you're running a successful app, you'll be able to afford people to help you scale out when you reach that point. But if you choose a slower framework (or have bad developers) you won't even reach the point of needing scalability.
Ruby, as a language, is an excellent choice - its easy to learn and work with, has great OO semantics and is very powerful (not fast, though). Rails is a great set of tools, but I always thought it is too complex and too "magicky" for its own good (it has a high learning curve and requires a lot of know how for a programmer to be effective). There are many alternatives, especially if you only want to do a REST API, that are simpler easier to work with and ... faster. I used and liked Grape and Sinatra. Here is a larger list of Ruby frameworks for REST API developers: https://wpshopmart.com/best-ruby-frameworks/.
BTW, in regards to my advice and missing from the list in the link above, I found Vert.x to be an effective Ruby server framework for REST APIs. See for example here: https://vertx.io/docs/vertx-web/ruby/#_sub_routers
I certainly wouldn't suggest that someone try to learn Rails while trying to found a startup. But I wouldn't suggest learning ANY framework while founding a startup. It's more about being able to find developers.
In the same vein, while other Ruby frameworks have some advantages, Rails is a common denominator that any Ruby developer already knows. Lord knows I have my issues with Rails, but it's a great way to move quickly to prove out the startup's ideas.
If your Rails app can't scale to 10s of thousands of users, then you've done something drastically wrong, and no framework will be able to fix that. Yes, you'll spend more on servers, but that's easily offset by the speed of delivering new features. (Assuming the idea has enough merit to actually find paying customers.)
I've heard really good things about Vert.x, but didn't realize it could be used with Ruby now. Thanks for the pointer!
We recommend Laravel over Ruby on Rails (Ruby) and Express.js (JavaScript/Node.js). We chose Laravel ourselves for our own internal software project, recently after comparing these same 3 software frameworks. In selecting Laravel, we chose to build our app using the software language PHP. PHP has the largest market share of all the web-based software languages (close to 80% of all websites use PHP). Also, Laravel is the fastest-growing software framework based on PHP making it a wise choice.
We also plan to integrate WordPress and WooCommerce later with our Laravel web-app. WordPress and WooCommerce like Laravel are all built using PHP. WordPress is the most popular Content Management System in the world. This will allow us to build out the front-end marketing website in WordPress. Also, we plan to offer subscriptions and sell products. For this, we will use WooCommerce. WooCommerce is the most used e-commerce platform in the world. We’ll be able to use our same Laravel developers to extend our app to WordPress and WooCommerce. By standardizing on PHP, we’ll be able to use the same software developers on all 3 platforms. PHP’s large market share will be an asset to us as we start recruiting talented software developers.
Lastly, we are gaining access to a fast-growing and awesome community that supports Laravel. Before we made our decision, I personally met Laravel’s founder Taylor Otwell along with several of his team members. After meeting with the Laravel team at Laracon US in New York City and learning more about the direction they are going with the framework, we’re confident we made the right decision.
To read the longer version of this answer where we go into more detail behind our recommendation, visit https://rackless.com/laravel-rails-expressjs