Last Updated: January 16, 2026 | Reading Time: 10 minutes

"What's the best framework for building a SaaS?"

"Should I use Next.js or Remix?"

"Is PostgreSQL better than MySQL?"

"What about Supabase vs. Firebase vs. PlanetScale?"

I see these questions constantly. Forums full of debates. Hours of research. Comparison spreadsheets.

Meanwhile, nothing gets built.

Before launching XLNavigator in 2010, I spent three weeks researching the "perfect" development stack for building Windows COM add-ins. Should I use C++ for maximum performance? C# for productivity? Visual Basic for rapid development? I read benchmarks, forum discussions, architecture posts.

Three weeks of research. Zero lines of code written.

Finally, I picked C# because I knew it well enough to get started. Not because it was "best." Because I could build with it.

Fifteen years later, XLNavigator has thousands of customers. The stack? Irrelevant. What mattered was shipping a product that solved a real problem.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: the stack doesn't matter nearly as much as you think.

The Research Trap

Researching stacks feels productive. You're learning, comparing, evaluating options. It seems like due diligence.

It's usually procrastination.

Every hour you spend comparing Next.js to Nuxt is an hour you didn't spend building. Every framework comparison video you watch is a feature you didn't ship.

The irony: most successful products could have been built with almost any modern stack. The technology wasn't the differentiator. The product was.

The Cost of Analysis Paralysis

Let's quantify what this research actually costs:

Time spent not building. If you spend 20 hours researching frameworks before writing a single line of code, that's 20 hours you didn't spend validating your idea, talking to users, or building features.

Opportunity cost. Those 20 hours could have produced a working prototype. A landing page with an email signup. Five customer interviews. An MVP you could show potential users.

Momentum loss. Starting is hard. Every day you delay, the psychological barrier grows. "I'll start once I pick the perfect stack" becomes "I'll start once I learn this framework" becomes "Maybe this idea isn't worth building anyway."

The real numbers are brutal. According to a 2024 survey of 500+ indie founders, developers who spent less than one week on initial tech decisions launched 2.3x faster than those who spent more than a month researching. Launch speed correlates directly with success—founders who shipped in under 3 months had 4x higher first-year revenue than those who took 6+ months.

The kicker? Post-launch surveys showed no correlation between "choosing the right stack" and product success. None. User acquisition, product-market fit, and execution determined outcomes. Not whether you picked React or Vue.

Why Builders Obsess Over Stack

I get it. Stack decisions feel important because:

Fear of choosing wrong. What if you pick the wrong framework and have to rewrite everything? (You probably won't have to.)

Wanting to learn the "right" thing. If you're going to invest time, shouldn't it be in the "best" technology? (There's no objective best.)

Procrastination disguised as research. It's easier to watch tutorials than to face the blank canvas of actually building. (This one stings because it's true.)

Impostor syndrome masked as diligence. "I need to pick the right technology because I'm not experienced enough to fix mistakes later." The belief that experienced developers never have to change technologies. (They do. All the time.)

FOMO on trends. The fear that if you don't use the hot new framework, you're falling behind. That employers won't hire you. That other developers will judge you. (They won't. Most are too busy building.)

Analysis as identity. For some developers, knowing about technologies becomes their identity. They're "the person who knows all the frameworks." Research feels like skill-building. It's less scary than being "the person who built something."

The stack question is a comfortable way to avoid the hard part: deciding what to build and actually building it.

Real Examples: Stack Didn't Matter

Let's look at companies that succeeded despite "wrong" technology choices:

Twitter started with Ruby on Rails (considered slow and not scalable). By the time scaling mattered, they had millions of users and revenue to fund rewrites. They wouldn't have gotten there by spending 6 months choosing the "right" stack.

Instagram was built on Django (Python framework, not known for performance). They scaled to 30 million users before being acquired for $1 billion. The stack didn't stop them. They solved scale problems when scale problems became real, not theoretical.

Airbnb used Ruby on Rails for years while growing to a multi-billion dollar company. Eventually they migrated pieces to other technologies—but only after they knew what needed to be fast. Premature optimization would have wasted months on problems they didn't have yet.

Craigslist runs on Perl (a language most developers consider "dead"). It's one of the top 30 most-visited sites in the US. The stack is ancient. The business works. That's what matters.

Basecamp built and scaled a company to $100M+ revenue on Ruby on Rails. Same framework critics said "doesn't scale." Still using it 20 years later.

The pattern: successful companies ship first, optimize later, and rewrite only when necessary. They don't get paralyzed by "choosing perfectly."

What Actually Matters

When it comes to technology choices, here's what actually matters:

Does it work? Can you build what you need to build? Then it works.

Can you build with it? Do you know it or can you learn it quickly? Then it's the right choice.

Can you ship? Will it get you to a working product? Then use it.

That's it. That's the whole evaluation.

The Boring Stack Advantage

You know what I recommend? The boring stack.

Proven technologies that have been around for years. Technologies with lots of tutorials, lots of Stack Overflow answers, lots of people who've solved your problems before.

Boring is good because:

  • Fewer surprises
  • More resources when you get stuck
  • More stability and security fixes
  • Still around in five years

The cutting-edge framework with the cool name might be dead in two years. React and Node.js will still be here.

When Stack Does Matter (Rarely)

Let me be clear: there are situations where technology choice genuinely matters. Just not as often as you think.

Extreme scale from day one. If you're building infrastructure for millions of concurrent users immediately (think replacing a major enterprise system), technology choices matter. But this describes less than 1% of new products. And even then, companies like Slack and Discord started simple and scaled later.

Specific performance requirements. Real-time gaming engines (where milliseconds matter), high-frequency trading (where microseconds matter), embedded systems (where memory is constrained), or audio/video processing (where performance is everything). These have genuine technical constraints that narrow your options significantly.

Regulated industries with specific requirements. Healthcare, finance, government contracts often mandate specific technologies or security standards. HIPAA compliance might require certain database encryption. Government contracts might require .NET. Banks might require Java. In these cases, your stack is chosen for you.

Team expertise (if you have a team). If you're hiring a team of experienced Rails developers, using Rails makes sense. Don't make them learn Elixir just because it's "better." Their productivity in a familiar stack will outweigh any theoretical technical advantages.

Platform-specific features. Building an iOS app? You need to use Apple's tools. Building for Windows desktop? .NET or Electron. Building browser extensions? JavaScript. Sometimes the platform dictates the technology.

Integration requirements. If your product must integrate deeply with Excel, you'll need technologies that work with COM interop (C#, VB.NET, C++). If you're building on top of Salesforce, you'll use Apex. Sometimes your ecosystem makes the choice for you.

But here's the key: these exceptions are obvious. If you're wondering whether stack matters for your project, it probably doesn't.

For most solo founders building most products? Just pick something and go.

The Decision Framework

If you insist on a framework for deciding, here it is:

Have you used it before? Use it again. Don't learn a new framework and build a product at the same time.

Can you get help if stuck? Active community? Plenty of tutorials? Good docs? Then it's viable.

Will it exist in 5 years? Major framework backed by a company or large community? It'll be around.

If your answer is yes to any of these, use that thing. If multiple things qualify, pick randomly. Seriously.

After You Choose

Once you've decided:

Stop reading comparisons. You've chosen. The debate is over.

Don't switch mid-project. The grass isn't greener. Every stack has problems. The problems you know are better than the problems you don't.

Master what you have. Go deep instead of wide. Understanding one stack well beats surface knowledge of five.

Common Stack Choice Mistakes

Here's what goes wrong when developers overthink the stack:

Choosing for resume-building instead of shipping. "I'll learn Rust because it looks good on my resume." If your goal is to ship a product, use what you know. If your goal is to learn Rust, build a Rust project. Don't try to do both at once—you'll do neither well.

Optimizing for theoretical scale. "I need to use microservices architecture because my app might scale." You don't have scaling problems yet. You have zero-user problems. Use a monolith. Split it later if you're lucky enough to have scale problems.

Following trends blindly. "Everyone's using Next.js, so I should too." Are you building what they're building? Do you have their constraints? Trends emerge for specific use cases, not because they're universally "better."

Overvaluing cutting-edge. New frameworks promise to solve all your problems. They might. They also might have incomplete documentation, breaking changes every release, and no Stack Overflow answers. Boring is better for shipping.

Switching mid-project. "I just learned about Svelte and it's so much better than React." Maybe it is. Rewriting your 60%-complete project to learn a new framework means starting over. Finish first, learn second.

Confusing stack choice with product validation. The stack won't validate your idea. Customers will. Spending 3 months building "the perfect architecture" doesn't matter if nobody wants what you're building. Build fast, learn fast, iterate.

The worst mistake? Letting stack choice become the reason you never start. "I'll start building once I pick the right framework" becomes "I'll start once I learn it" becomes "Actually maybe this is a bad idea anyway."

My Stack (And Why It Doesn't Matter)

For what it's worth, here's what I use:

  • Next.js for the frontend
  • TypeScript for type safety
  • Tailwind for styling
  • Vercel for hosting

Is this the best stack? I have no idea. It's the stack I know. I can build quickly with it. It gets out of my way.

That's all that matters.

You should use whatever you know. Whatever you can build with. Whatever ships.

The stack is not the product. The product is the product. The stack is just how you build it.

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