It's better to use Laravel with Vue.js and also laravel is very lightweight and speed performance.

Go for Laravel 8 (not 7, obviously because it's the latest version and has a lot of new features and bug fixes) when it comes to backend coding.

Go for Vue.js (if you don't have any preference) because it is having by default configuration setup in Laravel).

Pick MySQL or PostgreSQL both work fine.

If you know GCP, go for it, otherwise go for Heroku.

Avoid spending time on hosting setup - prefer PaaS based solutions.

In Laravel, try Laravel Breeze or Jetstream - these might make the development much faster - at least for the basic setup that is there.

I don't know anything really about CodeIgniter, but I do know that microservices are a great choice for e-commerce, as they tend to have a lot of different moving (but not necessarily connected) parts. That being said, and if you have a choice, I'd recommend Go personally. But node isn't the worst option if Go isn't something you're comfortable with.

If you know typescript and want an entire framework to work with, go wth Angular. AngularJS, to my knowledge was deprecated. React is great, popular, and you'll find a ton of support.

40-50k should not be a problem at all for the database nor for any frontend/backend combo. Laravel works pretty well with Vue.js, for example; and you can include Elasticsearch in the combo if you really need fulltext search capabilites in your app. That will be much more decisive in the final product than the frontend stack chosen.

I highly recomand using the Vue based Nuxt framework for the front end. It is not required to use the server render feature and the folder based routing and stores are really nice to work with. In addition it brings component auto import and lots of plugins neatly integrated (authentication, i18n, socket.io, etc.). If in the setup process you also chose Vuetify as a component library you will cover 98% of needed components.

As for Laravel vs CodeIginter I would chose Laravel as the safest bet. Sadly, CodeIgniter development slowed down after the main contributor's death. It is also worth mentioning, as others did, that the initial boost Vue got is from Laravel's creator and community. The simplicity and ease of use mindset is shared.

I can't speak to Angular since I haven't used it for at least 3 years (I wasn't a fan back then) but both React and Vue are great frameworks and will do the job just fine. Since you are using Laravel for the back end I'd recommend Vue. There's a lot of overlap between the communities and most Laravel developers I know do favor Vue over React.

Laravel is the best tool in php and I know it also if i don't develop in php. Vue.js is the future. In combination with https://bootstrap-vue.org/ is THE solution.

Best regards

Hi Chris, I will suggest going with Laravel and MySQL since the existing system is already in PHP it will help a lot and easier to port out to Laravel and will save a lot of time. Laravel has a very robust mechanism to handle the jobs/Queues and it comes with a lot of features.

Hi Chris, I recommend you to use Java with spring boot to rewrite your software. You will have the advantages of modern applications. The main challenge will be to cut your existing business logic to functional services (microservices) that will communicate each others. That will comes up also with the challenges of orchestrate those services but for that no worries. For the database also, will recommend Postgre too. For the front end, you can use angular, react or vue js with your backend since it will be API calls.

Hope it can help!

Being worked on both frameworks, I would suggest Spring Boot as it is really great when it comes to scalability. Laravel on the other hand provides great developer tools and a command line interface for the ease of development ( I really love the migrations in Laravel). If it is performance and scalability you are looking for then Spring Boot is your go to. It (and Java) has really matured over the years. Also, I would suggest you to consider Angular 2+ since AngularJs is obsolete.

Springboot (you can see for "jhipster" for a quick start with spring/angularJs ) is used in many micro service enterprise applications (they are design for), so API integration is "as easy as ABC". With this you can scale and give an answer to some of your questions: performance, speed, reliability and security. But be carefull with the learning curve...

NB: - For the DB, leave mysql and go to Postgres! their is no other option! you say thank you later! (a nosql database can be a nice tool too) - You have associated a front framework with a back framework, but they is no good reason to do that. You can use vuejs with springboot too (and i use them!)

First of all, Java can give you definitely better speed, especially at scale. One benefit is that you can tune it for a better response time, and another one is when you'll have millions of requests per day it'll save you some infrastructure cost.

But.. will you have millions of requests a day? How much does it matter if the API response time is 10ms or 50ms?

Rewriting an existing project is a huge deal. It can take years(!), especially if the team hasn't done such a thing yet and especially if the tech stack gets completely replaced.

So I argue against rewrite in the first place. There are two older articles on the topic, but their arguments are both valid as of today: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.jjinux.com/2008/05/joel-on-software-never-rewrite-from.html

What I'd suggest instead is to learn refactoring strategies. Even if you have some routine with refactoring it is worth reading Fowler's refactoring book: https://book-programming.com/refactoring-books/

What I would do with a "frameworkless" PHP codebase is: - Add a framework (I would also go with Laravel, but Symfony or Phalcon would also do the job) - Isolate the existing codebase in a folder if possible without any actual changes - Route the requests through the framework (with a catch-all route) and forward the request to the existing codebase - Take a simple component/page to start with and replace the DB calls using Laravel's DB layer - Doing this "experiment", you'll have a strategy that you can apply to other components - Do the refactoring for views, controllers, etc, step by step - In case you have APIs and other kinds of components apply different strategies - Keep deploying as frequent as possible - Apply the learnings on the run and do pivots if needed

There are many more details to this, but it exceeds the scope of this answer.

About Java: last year I was part of, actually sparking the rewrite of an existing API from Symfony to Java using Spring Boot/JHipster. The bottom line is that it was a bad idea.

We had a separate PM, an Engineering Manager, and a set of developers both Java and PHP, one of the developers highly experienced with the JHipster stack. We've got the support of the CEO, and despite his strong worries, the Head of Software gave it a green light too. After 20 months the old PHP system is still running and - of course - it has more features than the Java one, because life didn't stop, business demanded new features in the live system.

Java and the whole ecosystem are very different, so even if you have people with battlefield experience with it, the complete rewrite is extremely risky.

In my opinion, it's less of a technical than a business decision. I would sit down with the person(s) paying the bill for the refactoring. I would phrase the following questions and elaborate the answer together with them: - What is the problem we want to solve? (maintainability? speed? lack of people understanding the system? security?) - Is the system legacy only technically or also in the meaning "it no longer fits the business' reality"? - What are the expected outcomes of the refactoring? - What is the budget for the new/refactored system? - What is the timeframe allowed for the refactoring/rewrite? - How does the rewrite compare to refactoring, in terms of time, money, and complexity? - What happens with the development of new features during refactoring? - What resources will be assigned to the refactoring project?

Depends on how much time and money the company is willing to invest... But I'd recommend at least getting a start on lifting and shifting to the cloud if you have the knowledge/ability. Lots of performance gains can be made as well as cost saving. Not to mention learning how to operate on the cloud is a great thing to put on any resume these days.

Much easier to work with. And naturally integrates with Vue.js. Angular is in decline. Moreover, you already live in the PHP ecosystem. While I do both Java and PHP, onboarding into the PHP ecosystem is much faster.

Any help? 234 views but not a single advice 🙁

Comparing them end-to-end, Rails comes the most productive in my opinion. But there are bolder parameters you may consider. i.e. no one switches from Django to Rails to improve productivity and vice versa (probably from Laravel to one of those two).

• The language's productivity also matters, which both Ruby and Python are better for that.

• There is a philosophical difference between #Django and #Rails :

• Django supports the "Explicit over Implicit" idea, making it easier for newcomers to understand what's going on. This idea also has downsides. This allows beginners to start working with Django without even learning Django and best practices and defer learning by using references like Stackoverflow.com, which is not a good idea because you potentially don't know things that you don't know! Also, you may find many different project styles.

• On the other hand, Rails support the "Convention over configuration" and Scaffolding idea. It's easier for a Rails developer to be added to a new project or just review a random Rails project. Everything has a default and also it has some downsides as well. e.g. As a beginner, everything feels like magic in Rails, and you don't understand what is going on and how Rails understand while you didn't "explicitly" say what do you want sometimes.

Conclusion: Rails and Django are more productive and you can build projects on your own quickly (many giant startups launched this way!).

P.S: for learning RoR I suggest the book/video from Michael Hartl.

I picked Django because we use it at work. But honestly, if you don't know any of them, I would look at the jobs around where you live and learn the one that either has the most jobs posted or if you can look at the trends the one that is growing the number of jobs the most.

All three would satisfy your needs and all three are good choices. Dotnet core would also be a good choice, again if there are jobs in your area for said technologies. If you literally don't care about this for employment, learn them all and just do it in alphabetical order :)

Note: I think you are wrong about Node being too immature - there are also MOSTLY standards for everything you want to do on the backend that have not changed for many years.

I recommend Ruby/Rails. I write the text in question answer form:

Quick prototyping

Yes you can use the prototyping in Rails or not. And this can be realized by adding any of testing framework like Cucumber or RSpec for example. Writing the test you can work on the application prototype without a change real code in production, or even development environment.

Easy to get to production level for backend

Yes it is easy, you are able to use the capistrano gem with its modules, if required, to deploy application to production within a day.

Maintainable and buildable by one person alone

Since the Rails gets on itself the main code part of a data processing, you are able easily to generate the required code with build-in Rails or external gem generators, and to merely maintain the your code, if you would cover it with a test of selected test framework.

Enforces conformity, so others can easily read and contribute to the code, making successfully open sourcing possible

As far as I said you can barely control a contribution to your project with using the test covering frameworks, to keep conformity the project.

Works well with React

You can use React along with any JS NPM module easily using webpacker gem.

Has a mature and fairly stable ecosystem for the basics (auth, storage, db, image handling, backups, change history, etc.

Of course the Rails framework is supported by many three-side gems, which can be found at rubygems, that support the authentication (devise), storage feature (fog), db (pg/mysql/sqlite3), image handling (rmagick), backups (backup), change history (history)

Has an ecosystem that will still be alive in 10 years, responding to changes.

Ruby/Rails with the RubyGem ecosystem is actively envolving and not plan to be collapsed and abandned with of development both Ruby language and Rails framework.

So, you can freely and fearlessly start using the Rails framework as server side base for your project.

Rails uses too much magic and sugar. Laravel is something from the previous century. I'd say Django can be well balanced choice. I have extensive experience with all three. So, this advice based on practical projects

DJango after a little practice, with migrations and support to a lot of libraries and modules is very efficient to create small projects.

Edit: Between Laravel, Django or RoR (Ruby on Rails)

Laravel and Postgres will be the better solutions you can add more like Redis for caching and React/Vue for the frontend.

Check Spring, if security and reliability is needed along with Lots of Database , check Spring Data, spring web, spring security

My question for you is: "Which one are you familiar with?" Following your needs, both could do it, but think about it. Now talking about Node.js, in my opinion, if you use JavaScript, there are lots of packages to support your entire project, including native ones for testing TDD and others for BDD. Also the best support on AWS (Amazon Web Services) and GCP (Google Cloud Platform).

The tools you mentioned are all backend focused frameworks. I will say, you can choose one of them as you may prefer (maybe Laravel and Django will be better since it's more organized than Node.js). But no matter what, if you will create a website builder application, today you'll need a frontend framework like Vue.js, React or Angular - or maybe Ember.js, Svelte and Meteor.

If you use Nodejs, you should use one more frontend language like reactjs or angularjs. Laravel is the better option. They are more power for rendering.

React or Angular bro!

i recommended .NET because the library so rich, you can integrated any sources to computed , compiling, integrating, your apps to high complexity, easy to communicated with SAP BAPI. used Oracle DB, Cheers.

I would say go for Node.js since you probably would only build a REST API that would talk to the frontend and some communication with the database.

On the other hand, Laravel is a much heavier framework that follows MVC pattern. Since you don't need the V in the MVC of Laravel. You can go for a straight Express that just handles the API request and return a response.

Hello Varun S,

Project-1 : If the Laravel part is an API, you should check Flutter or Quasar Framework for your frontend in order to reduce the development time and process.

Hi Eva, As you have solid experience with Spring already, you should jump into freelancing with that. It would be quite stressful to start freelancing with a tech stack you don't know well. Then in the background you can keep learning/practicing an alternative and switch over when you are confident enough (eg. 0.5-1 year later). I think you should learn Laravel as you already like it and find it easier. Express has better performance but that is not required for most of the small freelancer projects.

I think Patrik and Alex are right: if you're comfortable with Spring Boot already, you'll be more productive right from the start.

If you wish to learn something else besides, both Laravel and Express are good choices. They aren't in the same category of frameworks: Laravel is an all-in-one solution, while Express is more like "build your own stack from different parts". Which implies that you can use whatever you want as a database engine: MySQL or PostgreSQL are perfectly valid choices (in my school, we teach Express with MySQL, because SQL is still a big thing here in France, and a sought-after skill). You can use Sequelize or TypeORM which support all major SQL DBMS.

Express is widely used, but if you're seeking the JavaScript equivalent of Spring Boot or Laravel, you probably want to look at NestJS. The only potential downside is that it's still young, maintained by a small commmunity, compared to those behind Spring Boot and Laravel.

Bottom line: using a stack tech, that you enjoy and are comfortable with, matters. Spring Boot + Vue.js seem perfectly fine to me. But do forget jQuery if you're using Vue.js, React or Angular, because it will definitely bring more harm than good!

Looking at current technological trends and rise of JavaScript, you cannot go wrong with JavaScript. - There's an abundance of libraries to get most things done - You can use JavaScript for both the frontend and the backend - this allows you potentially share your logic/models/code across both stacks - A dynamic/interpreted language such as JavaScript is great for serverless (there's somewhat of a trend towards serverless aswell - especially in modern projects) - If you like/need static typing, you can always migrate seemlessly to Typescript - VueJS is a lightweight framework (compared to Angular), it has more GitHub stars and most would argue it's easier to work with (beginner friendly). Additionally most modern webapps do not use JQuery anymore (even though a lot of legacy projects continue to do so). You don't need JQuery if you use Vue/Angular/React

Additionally it doesn't seem like performance is a hugely important metric in your scenario, so JavaScript would suffice.

Note: These are all my opinions and what I've seen in the current market when recently searching for jobs.

I would definitely recommend you to go with Spring Boot + AngularJS + jQuery. Reasons: 1- You have an experience of 4 years with the above-mentioned stack. 2- As you mentioned that you wish to work as a freelancer, your stack is the perfect one for finding good bids with a little less effort than that of PHP + Laravel + Vue.js.

Hi as someone who employs and select developers i agree with a lot almost sayed but think of what are your strengths and where you are or better where your customers are. If you search for big enterprise projects spring boot is ok sql is must and html css as well. if you want to go more to internet related companies (like airbnb, what sup, facebook ) or similar (and not asia) then react is a must node js as well. The libraries tools etc which are used you need to adopt fast. If asia then VUE is a must. but if you like small projects with individuals or like wordpress or similar then you can learn php but i think in 2020 it is wasted time. Same for python in that area. and i also see that we often have problem that developer at least must understand docker docker compose better as it works with kubernetes ,.. just my 5 cents

in order to stay employable, I'd work with something you can deliver with. if I'd be your client and you'd have to get comfortable with a new stack, I would 100% not pay you for this startup time. learn new stuff in your free-time. or set aside time for learning.

that said, if you want to reorientate, php (even though i personally hate it) is extremely wide spread. but so are java and nodejs. so I'm not a fan of that argument... i recommend building something in each language, and see what you enjoy more. for me it was nodejs, because I already enjoy frontend JavaScript, and appreciate the ecosystem and community.

regarding expressjs and mongodb: yes, it is a goto solution for a lot of tutorials, because its as simple as it gets. especially wben using something like monk. BUT if you want to use mysql, posgres or similar, check out TypeORM, Prism or another ORM-like solution. you can use any db with express, and there's plenty of abstraction layers, which make your life easier. but i noticed that expressjs does a lot less "holding hands" compared to .net core (c#), or laravel (php). can be a pro or a con.

As a developer myself, I would recommend you not to restrict yourself to JAVA, PHP or any other language. New Tools/languages keep coming every day. If you do plan to move to freelancing. PHP has a lot of options in the freelance space and a lot of competition too.

Learning PHP is as simple as learning any other language. It depends merely on your interest.

Personally if you can code, you should not restrict yourself. I have had to code in many languages, PHP, Perl, shell script, Python, Java, Javascript, Ruby etc... I would keep your developing skills and logic, algorithms etc.. and increase your knowledge and experience in the different languages.

I agree with you JAVA is a lot more time consuming. But it also has its enterprise level scope.

At the same time learning a new language should not be a barrier for you to stop exploring what's out there and keeping your skills up to date. Learning new technologies should be your primary focus and getting project out of your stack helps you build a good reputation.

There are many options for you to pursue. Having an open mindset will help you move forward. If you look to learn now, you are setting yourself up for a brighter future.

I like fullstack freelancers who stacks are clean as one of below

1. PHP (laravel ) + Jquery + Bootstrap

2. Python(Django) + Angular JS or VueJS

3. NODEJS + REACTJS

Please, try to work with your comfortable stack, here is some recommendation

Hey There, I would recommend going fullstack javascript since you already have experience with javascript on the front end it would be very easy to pickup node and express js. You can use sql with node and express if you please, but mongo is pretty easy to get going with.

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

Before I recommend a tool, I think it is important to look at your requirements and capabilities - as you have looked at 3 very different tools: different programming languages, different implementation strategies and different target audience. It sounds like you don't already have a set of dedicated developers, so it is likely that your choice should be mainly driven by how easy it is to get developers that are familiar with the tools - so I'm going to list some considerations that I think you should review, starting with what I believe would be the most important for your bootstrap process:

1. Mindshare: how easy it is to get developers that are familiar with the technology and can immediately start working on your project. This is definitely where Node.js shines - Javascript is one of the fastest growing languages and Node.js played a huge part in this. I would bet that wherever you are located, Javascript developers would be the easiest to come by.

2. Fit for purpose: from your description we can understand that you are looking at a backend technology to implement some sort of REST API for a mobile app. The 3 different options you offered each fit on a different place on such a stack: Ruby is a programming language and not even a service framework - if you choose it, you then have to choose a server implementation and REST framework (and there are a lot, mostly as Ruby has a standard API for connecting a web server and application frameworks, and so this space has blown up) it used to be that Rails was the most popular, so you may choose that, but the interest in it has waned a bit in recent years; Node.js is a server framework, but it also has a dominant application framework called Express, that is geared well to your usage, so you'd likely work with that; Laravel is an application framework - it uses the PHP programming language, whose use has declined a bit in recent years, and was originally built for MVC type applications - though it has workflows for REST APIs and would probably work well for you as well.

3. Scalability: while this is probably the least significant issue at the moment (when it gets to a point where the backend service is your bottleneck, you'd likely have enough resources for a rewrite), and also the most dependent on factors that you didn't specify and are hard to estimate (such as: session complexity; amounts of data; sensitivity to locality; sensitivity to latency), it is still worthy to address it. Unfortunately, I don't have any good news: Ruby is notoriously bad at getting the best performance (the current BKM for milking performance from a Ruby codebase is to run the app on the Java virtual machine); Node.js has severe memory limitations that will make it very hard to scale if your backend needs to do a lot of work (I have a very personal and troubling experience with this issue); and PHP has as many scalability optimization strategies as there are PHP developers (this is not a good thing).

My suggestion to you as to how to proceed can be summarized to this prioritized list of options: 1. Get a good head developer with a lot of experience and let them choose the best tool - they'd likely go with what they know, which is likely to be a good choice - and if not, when scalability will become an issue, you could rewrite. 2. Choose something (likely Node.js) and don't worry about scalability - see (1) above. 3. Use Vert.x: it is a highly scalable application and service framework that offers great performance as well as a lot of tools to solve data scalability, locality and latency, and it works with multiple programming languages, such as Javascript and Ruby.

Node.js would be the best choice among all, you can compare all 3 of them on Stackshare and you will find that Node.js is on the top on almost every aspect, and since your focus is primarily on Performance and Scalability you won't regret after choosing Node.js. Also, the JavaScript open-source community has made a lot of effort and created numerous packages that will give you the speed and smooth execution of your project you need. Though your question was regarding backend, but if you choose JavaScript(Node.js) at your backend, then you can have a cross-functional team that can work on both, frontend as well as backend because JavaScript is everywhere, React Native for Android and iOS apps, React.js for single page web apps and Node.js ofcourse for your backend. And I don't have to tell you how much easier it would be to code and manage in a single language to build your complete system end-to-end. I hope it helps.

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.