Web application development can be a challenging project. Preparation and planning are needed before the actual development. Even the decision to either personally hire web development services or collaborate with development services companies, such as a Node JS development company, needs a bit more consideration. Other factors like tech talent shortage and hiring remote developers also factor into planning for web development projects.

Aside from knowing how to build a website and knowing the specifics of your project, choosing the best web development tools will ease the development process. Here are the key steps and questions to keep in mind in choosing the right backend technology for your application development.

A. Know your product requirements

1. Size and complexity – The size and complexity of a project dictate the amount of work that will go towards developing your app. Small projects are manageable to develop, while the large and more complex projects will require more work and effort.
2.  Scalability – As demand rises, will your app be able to adapt and scale up if needed? Is your app built with the potential for expansion? Planning for scalability in your application add to its potential for growth.
3. Sustainability – As the demand for your app increases, will there be measures to ensure that updates, upgrades, and fixes will be available? Will there be a long-term plan for the usability and growth of your app?

B. Plan for security

With the level of interconnectivity of devices and media are in our technological age, security has become an essential aspect of developing an application. In developing apps, the type and level of security measures to be put in place need to be identified beforehand.

C. Assess manpower availability

What do you need? What do you already have? What type of developers do you need? Aside from knowing what type of developers you will need, researching how to hire a developer will also go a long way to easing the recruitment process.

D. Think of the cost

Website development costs can account for numerous aspects of your project. Two of the most costly aspects of a project are developer salaries, such as web developer salary, and application maintenance costs. It would be best to take these into consideration and prepare accordingly.

E. Consider easier alternatives

Other options when considering technologies to be used developing an app are also available. There are pre-built stacks – such as LAMP, MEAN, and .NET – that go together to form a cohesive stack of tools for you to use. There are also open source tools – like NodeJS, NodeJS IDE, Bootstrap, and LESS – that can be used to reduce costs.

There are two major aspects of creating a business website, namely, the front-end (client-side) and the backend (server-side). Front-end development focuses on enhancing the website user experience and user interface. Website user experience testing is just one of the many processes and tasks of front-end development.

Backend development, on the other hand, focuses on processing, storing, and accessing data used by the website. Backend development also helps optimize overall processing for the frontend of the website. There are 3 main tool groups needed to have a well-functioning backend; a framework, a database, and a server.

Backend Frameworks

Backend frameworks provide structure to the backend development. Frameworks ease the programming burden of the developer, ensuring that they have the tools needed to build the website that their clients need. Below are the top backend frameworks available and the web development languages that they are built on. 

• (Javascript) NodeJS
• (Javascript) Express
• (Ruby) Ruby on Rails
• (PHP) Laravel
• (Python)Django

Database Tools

Database tools help store and manage your data, and can be hosted and accessed locally or through the cloud. Here are some of the most popular database tools for your web development project.

• MongoDB
• PostgreSQL
• MySQL

Web Server Tools

Web server tools are used to manage user transactions – handling requests coming from application users. These tools are the ones executing user requests, implementing the right processes, and storing or extracting data from the database. Below are the 2 major providers of server tools services.

• Apache
• Nginx

What brings together the backend development of a project is the framework. Of the backend frameworks that we have highlighted, what stands out the most is NodeJS.
NodeJS is a backend framework that allows developers to code server-side applications in Javascript. Single page application websites are, usually, what is NodeJS used for. NodeJS examples are Medium, Paypal, Coursera, Imgur, and adm.tools. Here are some of the reasons why NodeJS is great for your web application development project.

1. Size and complexity – NodeJS is a lightweight and efficient framework that allows for both the frontend and backend development of NodeJS application using Javascript. Because of this, NodeJS developers become more efficient and are able to focus on developing the application and its features.
2. Scalability – NodeJS has built-in tools that are capable of processing large data processing requests in a short period and process more data in a single transaction. This makes NodeJS an efficient web development tool.
3. Code Consistency – Because NodeJS is built on Javascript, Node web development is applicable to both frontend and backend aspects of a project. There are uniformity and reusability in the code and tools that NodeJS developers use.     
4. Community – Because NodeJS is an open source technology, it has a global community that just keeps on growing. This community helps improve NodeJS, coming up with more tools and libraries that make NodeJS web application development more efficient and diverse.
5. Sustainability – With a large community dedicated to NodeJS web development, there is a lot of support for projects and NodeJS developers in maintaining their code and tools. Which makes NodeJS applications sustainable.

There are steps to be taken when choosing the right tools for a web application development project. Like identifying product requirements (size, complexity, scalability, and sustainability), planning data security measures, considering possible alternative tools, assessing manpower availability, and budgeting for developer salaries and maintenance costs. The complexity of backend development adds another layer of difficulty to web application projects.

A great backend development covers these three aspects; framework, database, and server. There are numerous tools for each, the standout tool among them is NodeJS. NodeJS is a lightweight Javascript backend framework that provides NodeJS developers the ability for code consistency, large data processing, fast turnaround, code sustainability, and a large community for support. NodeJS development fits both frontend and backend aspects of web application development. NodeJS application development is a lot more efficient and cohesive development process for your web application.