Side Projects - how do you choose a tech stack?

Josefine Schfr - Jun 28 '21 - - Dev Community

To get my hands dirty and continue learning a little more holistically I have been wanting to get started on a side project for a long time. What’s been holding me back so far is the sheer abundance of options - I feel like a little kid at the candy store. Torn somewhere between frantically running around and completely paralysed.

During the bootcamp I participated in, we created our own web app with React, Node & MongoDB and tested a little with Cypress. Deployment / Hosting was not part of the course. Now while these are probably solid options, these choices were made for me. Now I am wondering, if I am completely free to choose, how do I decide on the stack for a project?

I get that this highly depends on the project’s requirements and personal preferences. But say I want to create a very basic portfolio page - think virtual business card, really nothing fancy as an MVP (else I will literally never even try this).

I discussed this with colleagues and got pretty diverse (and sometimes confusing) answers. This these perspectives helped me a lot put my own research into perspective, I would love to hear from you:

How would you choose what to work with?

  • Based on what you would like to learn or rather something you already know well?
  • How do you determine what tech stack is best suited for what you want to do?
  • Do you rather try something new and shiny or do you have a ‘winning team’ you aren’t likely to change any time soon?

Literally any tip, opinion or resource is highly appreciated :) Thanks so much!

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