Backend is literally the backbone of development, and a big passion of mine; it's where everything started.
Today I'll be showcasing 9 backend frameworks. The idea is that you focus on one of them and become really good at it, there are just so many around I wanted to showcase the diversity for you guys.
This tutorial is sectioned by programming languages since everyone got a poison.
This list makes the assumption you already know the basics of a programming language if you're all new to backend I'd suggest a more basic course of one of the languages.
Choosing a framework
Before jumping into the list of amazing frameworks out there, let's see what framework works for you.
Choosing the right framework is very personal advice, like clothes shopping, or buying a new PC.
It depends on your needs, what you used to, and your general style.
For this purpose let's split it up into some criteria:
๐ง Knowledge level (seen from a beginners point of view) ๐ฆพ What it's strong at ๐ Downsides
Laravel: ๐ง Beginner entry possible, ๐ฆพ Modern programming, Flexible, Strict, Well documented ๐ Performance issues, Updates a lot (where third party packages might break)
Express: ๐ง Beginner entry possible ๐ฆพ JavaScript, Fast, Multi-threading, Many tutorials, Extendable, Quick prototyping ๐ Changes rapidly, can be hard to keep up with, Security is not it's top priority
Koa: ๐ง Beginner entry possible ๐ฆพ JavaScript, Well structured, Improved security over express ๐ Fairly new, so certain pain points might hold you up.
Gin: ๐ง Medium knowledge required ๐ฆพ Massive on performance, Super easy to get a rest API, a lot of middleware ๐ Not good if you want different server-side elements it doesn't come with
Django: ๐ง Medium knowledge required ๐ฆพ High security, a lot of stuff included like database modeling, etc. ๐ Speed, Would not recommend it for super small one pages for instance.
Flask: ๐ง Beginner entry possible ๐ฆพ Flexible, testing made easy ๐ Not super strict, not super scaleable
Ruby on Rails: ๐ง Beginner entry possible ๐ฆพ Super high standards, quick development using commands ๐ Speed, Hard to make flexible, Can be hard to change something later on
Spring Boot: ๐ง Advanced knowledge required ๐ฆพ High on testing, Good with many databases, easy CLI integrations ๐ You can't customize as you wish, hard to understand
ASP.NET MVC: ๐ง Beginner entry possible ๐ฆพ Well proven, Fast server-side, MVC made easy ๐ Not best at SEO out of the box, Hosting might become more difficult
PHP ~ Laravel
The only reason Laravel is first is that I'm using Laravel in my day-to-day job. It's the successor of Symfony and considered the biggest MVC (model, view, controller) framework for PHP. There are many great packages you can include to make your life easier.
Express is an amazing and at the time of writing the biggest node.js framework. It helps us focus on what actually matters and not reinventing the wheel.
It's amazing to build full web applications or choose to focus on API only interfaces.
Another great MVC framework is Ruby on Rails. It's built on top of Ruby and proven itself many times over the years. It's a full-blown framework, so everything you'll ever need is included in it.