• Language/ Framework

  • Node.js/Express with Sequelize or TypeORM ORM
  • Ruby on Rails (RoR) with Active Record as ORM

• Authorization + Authentication

  • Node: Passport.js OR JSON Web Tokens (JWTs)
  • RoR: Devise for authentication and CanCanCan for authorization

• Notifications - Push, Email, SMS [Transactional and Promotional]

  • Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) - A cross-platform messaging solution that allows you to send push notifications to iOS, Android, and web applications. It offers features such as message targeting, message analytics, and message history. FCM is free to use.
  • SendGrid - Offers a free plan for up to 100 emails/day, and its paid plans start at $14.95/month.
  • Mailgun - Offers a free plan for up to 10,000 emails/month, and its paid plans start at $35/month.
  • Twilio: pay-as-you-go pricing mode
  • RoR: ActionMailer for emails

• Logging

  • Error logging and Application logging
    • Sentry: Offers a free plan with basic features, and its paid plans start at $29/month.
    • Airbrake: Offers a free plan for up to 7 days of error tracking, and its paid plans start at $29/month.
    • Node: Winston, Log4js, Bunyan, and Graylog
    • RoR: Lograge is free to use

• APM(Application Monitoring) tool

  • Datadog: It is a cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform. It provides real-time metrics, traces, and logs, and allows you to monitor the health of your application and identify issues quickly. It offers a free plan with basic features, and its paid plans start at $15/month.

• Crons/ Jobs Scheduler

  • Node: https://github.com/agenda/agenda, https://github.com/breejs/bree, https://github.com/node-schedule/node-schedule, https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-cron
  • RoR: https://github.com/sidekiq-cron/sidekiq-cron

• Dockerize the App

  • Docker and docker-compose to containerize the app.

  • Node: [base image]

    # Specify the base image
    FROM node:14
    
    # Set the working directory
    WORKDIR /app
    
    # Copy package.json and package-lock.json into the image
    COPY package*.json ./
    
    # Install dependencies
    RUN npm install
    
    # Copy the rest of the app code into the image
    COPY . .
    
    # Set the command to start the app
    CMD ["npm", "start"]
    

  • RoR: [base image]

    # Specify the base image
    FROM ruby:2.7.3
    
    # Set the working directory
    WORKDIR /app
    
    # Copy Gemfile and Gemfile.lock into the image
    COPY Gemfile Gemfile.lock ./
    
    # Install dependencies
    RUN bundle install
    
    # Copy the rest of the app code into the image
    COPY . .
    
    # Set the command to start the app
    CMD ["rails", "server", "-b", "0.0.0.0"]
    

• Database

  • Relational: If the data model is structured and has clear relationships
    • PostgreSQL
  • Document-based database: If the data is more flexible or requires large volumes of data to be handled
    • MongoDB
    • Couchbase
  • Graph database: If there are complex relationships between entities
    • Neo4j
    • Amazon Neptune
  • Explore TiDB
    • TiDB is an open-source distributed SQL database that is designed to handle hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP) workloads. It was developed by PingCAP and released in 2015.
    • It uses a distributed architecture to achieve scalability and high availability, and it supports ACID transactions and SQL queries.

• Cloud & Hosting

  • AWS - S3, EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudFront
  • GCP - Google Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, Cloud Function
  • Cloudflare
  • Notes:
    • Put a firewall in the production server
    • Rate limiting on the application server
    • API throttling

• Analytics

  • Google Analytics
  • Mixpanel

Existing players’ tech stack:

• Stanza living
  • React, Next, and Node
• Cofynd
  • Node, Express
• Housr
  • React, Next, and Node
• Cozy Stay
  • Django
• Grexter
  • No Backend system as such for customers
  • React and Next for the Landing page
• Flatmate
  • React, Next, and Node