We all know that appearance matters. However, when it comes to web applications, it is definitely not enough. Your end users might come for the beautiful layout and intuitive interface, but if your application is slow, full of errors, or crashes often, you won’t be able to retain clients. That is why in software development, it is important to pay equal attention to both the backend and frontend of your application.
What is the backend?
In software, the backend is everything that makes the app work behind the scenes. It connects the frontend, that is, the user-facing part of the application, with the database, where the data is stored. User requests and responses to them are processed by a server, which is why when we speak about backend we often call it the server side of the web application, while the frontend is the client side.
Backend is all about the architecture of the app, and it is responsible for security, scalability, business logic and other integral parts of the app functionality. Typically, the backend can be much more complex than the frontend, which is why it is so important to select the right tools. The backend of your app is responsible for the whole application functioning smoothly.
There are multiple backend development tools, some more popular than others. In this article, we will review the top backend tools and technologies in several categories.
Programming languages for backend development
You can write your application in whatever language suits your needs best, but there are some programming languages that are traditionally used for backend programming.
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language created in the middle of the 1990s and originally geared towards web development. The name PHP used to stand for Personal Home Page, but these days it is an abbreviation of PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is often referred to as a server-side scripting language, meaning that PHP code is typically processed by a PHP interpreter on a web server.
The popularity of PHP for backend development can be attributed to its object-oriented programming features, cross-platform compatibility, and significant community support. It is an open-source language, so it is free to use, and also it is considered to be a comparatively easy programming language to learn.
PHP provides opportunities for easy integration with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, convenient error reporting, security, and flexibility, which are all reasons for its popularity. Multiple widely-used content management systems, like Joomla! or WordPress, are written in PHP. Even such giants as Tumblr, Facebook, and Wikipedia use it. There are also several popular PHP frameworks, which we will review more closely in the next section.
Java
One of the oldest programming languages still widely used today, Java, is a compiled, general-purpose language that is very popular among web applications. Fun fact, this programming language was originally called Oak, and then Green, before it got its current name, Java.
One of the reasons more than 9 million web developers use Java is its automatic garbage collection, made possible by Java Virtual Machine that tracks the objects in your code and automatically removes the parts that are not used or redundant. Backend developers value Java for the multithreading feature that maximizes CPU capacity by allowing multiple processes to be executed at the same time.
Java’s portability is another factor that web developers appreciate. Its advanced features, powerful set of APIs, and multiple backend frameworks make it easier to deliver efficient and secure backend solutions.
JavaScript
Originally JavaScript was named LiveScript, and it appeared around the same time as PHP. It is one of the programming languages that is most closely associated with website development itself, together with HTML and CSS, but it can be also used for developing mobile apps, games, etc. JavaScript offers lightweight scripting and OOP (object-oriented programming) features, and also loads of community support thanks to its popularity.
JavaScript allows us to create dynamic pages and interact with users with the help of client-side scripts, which means it is very widely used for frontend development, but its use for backend is no less extensive. More specifically, using JavaScript for backend presupposes the use of Node.js, which is the JavaScript runtime environment, famous for its high performance and scalability. Node.js is often used for single-page applications, real-time chats and Internet of Things, thanks to its use of asynchronous data processing and event-driven architecture.
Python
Another general-purpose programming language that is widely used for backend development is Python. It supports functional, procedural, and object-oriented programming paradigms, offers a large collection of standard libraries, and easily integrates with other languages. Multiple platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Instagram use Python as a part of their technology stack.
Python is not too complicated to learn and use, thanks to good code readability and concise syntax. Other features that make backend developers choose Python include support of GUI programming and portability.
Go
Developed in the late 2000s at Google, Go is one of the most trending programming languages at the moment. This statically-typed and compiled programming language is also often referred to as Golang. Its designers aimed at keeping the useful characteristics of other languages while fixing the things that caused the most criticism. As a result, Go is very popular for its usability, readability, runtime efficiency, and high-performance multiprocessing and networking. Its lightweight Goroutines feature allows developers to create concurrently-running functions that don’t affect the system negatively even when there are millions of them.
Go is widely used in Google services, but it is also a staple for various other projects, including Uber and Soundcloud. It has several frameworks for web development and a powerful standard library.
Ruby
Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented language often used for prototyping. The original main task of Ruby was to create new projects with high performance fast. It offers multiple exciting features, for example, metaprogramming. With Ruby you can create a program that will write the code on its own, with the help of such tools as introspection, ghost methods, and class macros. Metaprogramming provides an opportunity to shorten the backend web development release cycle and increase your app flexibility.
Backend developers also value an extensive set of libraries, called Ruby Gems. The central repository already has more than 175 thousand gems and keeps growing. Often, to find the right solution, you just need to look in the repository. The Ruby developers community is extensive and pretty active. But the most significant for backend web development is probably Ruby’s framework, Rails, that we will discuss in more detail in the next section.
Frameworks
Laravel
This PHP framework is one of the most widely used because of its user-friendly interface and expressive syntax. The architectural pattern of this open-source framework is Model-View-Controller (MVC). Besides providing multiple pre-installed libraries, a template engine, and an in-built command line (Artisan), Laravel can make your coding life easier by offering backend tools for unit testing, dependency injections, and so on.
Although the community is not the most active one, there is an extensive documentation environment that makes it easy to learn. There are also a number of ready-to-use packages that allow you to quickly configure OAuth authentication for GitHub or Facebook, manage billing services for paid subscriptions, etc.
Node.js
JavaScript backend developers use Node.js to create server-side applications. Node.js is easy to learn for those who already know JavaScript. Its runtime environment is based on the same JS runtime engine that is built into the Google Chrome browser.
Applications created in Node.js are typically scalable and fast, due to being single-threaded and event-driven. In Node.js there is very little overhead since you can manage thousands of concurrent connections on a single process. There is also a convenient way to manage dependencies through the Node Package Manager.
It is worth mentioning another, minimalist Node.js framework, named Express.js. This flexible web application framework specifically belongs to the backend technology stack category, while Node.js is a full-stack framework, so you can use it for both backend and frontend development.
Django
An open-source framework for Python, Django, is maintained by the independent Django Software Foundation, based in the USA. It follows the architectural pattern known as MVT (Model-View-Template) and is extremely popular thanks to its security, scalability, and massive community support. Django offers great capabilities for rapid development and extensibility. This backend and frontend framework is often considered to be faster than most and promotes minimal coupling, component reuse, and low code, making it simpler to create complex websites.
Many popular websites are built using Django, for example Pinterest and Instagram. It is especially widely used for scientific computing platforms, social network websites, and content management systems.
Fiber
The Go backend development framework Fiber is very powerful and lean. It allows you to integrate third-party libraries easily and ensures fast development with high performance and zero memory allocation.
Thanks to its leanness, Fiber is sometimes compared to Express.js. It provides better opportunities for scalability and less overhead, while also allowing you to build REST APIs, serve static files, and utilize a template engine. Go developers appreciate the low memory footprint and routing support.
Ruby on Rails
This is another framework that also utilizes the MVC pattern but, as its name suggests, is a framework for the Ruby programming language. It is considered very beginner-friendly and simplifies the coding with Ruby for backend web development. It also includes robust testing functionality that enables you to write testing scenarios to increase your application security and stability.
Ruby on Rails has a very active community of developers that constantly work on improving the code. This framework is used by such huge enterprises as Groupon and AirBnB.
Databases
On the subject of backend web development tools, it is crucial to mention some of the popular database management systems. Organizing your data storage securely and efficiently is one of the factors that will define the success of your web application.
MySQL
The popularity of the open-source MySQL relational database management system is partially based on it working very well with multiple programming languages (PHP, Java, Python, etc.) and operating systems. But that is not all, backend developers also like it for its dependability, usability and high performance. MySQL can boast great data accuracy and encryption, strong indexing, secure connections support, and more.
MySQL is used as a primary database at multiple extremely popular websites, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. It requires only basic SQL knowledge and relational database experience, so it is easy to start using it.
PostgreSQL
Many web developers consider the PostgreSQL object-relational database management tool one of the most advanced general-purpose, open-source database systems. It differs from other contemporary relational databases by having a number of extra features, including function overloading and table inheritance. They call PostgreSQL an object-relational database management tool because it supports the data objects concept.
PostgreSQL is used as a primary database for multiple analytics, geospatial, and other web and mobile applications. It is famous for its accuracy, integrity, and resilience.
MongoDB
Unlike MySQL and PostgreSQL, MongoDB is a noSQL database management system. It utilizes JSON-like documents for data storage and retrieval while schemas are optional, which allows it to work with unstructured data. MongoDB works well with multiple languages, including Python, Ruby, Java, PHP, and others.
The popularity of MongoDB is on the rise, thanks to big data analytics becoming more and more prominent for many businesses. It is highly scalable and flexible, and offers such features as load balancing, proper indexing for better execution of queries, sharding, replication for improving stability and data availability, and optimized analytics thanks to ad-hoc queries, etc.
Web Servers
The role of the web server in an application backend is very significant as well. A web server is responsible for processing and delivering web content to clients, for example, web browsers, over the HTTP protocol. It facilitates client-server communication over the Internet and enables efficient serving and hosting of websites. The performance of the whole website or app depends on choosing the right web server.
Apache
The Apache HTTP server is a part of the Apache framework and, at the moment, one of the leading web servers in the world - around a third of all websites in the world use Apache. It is very often implemented together with PHP and MySQL in a single package for quick and convenient setup of local or remote servers. It is well known for its reliability.
The Apache web server is open-source, highly customizable and compatible with most operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and macOS. Its popularity has remained high over the years, thanks to such features as multiple request processing modes, convenient user and session tracking, loadable dynamic modules (for caching, URL rewriting, password authentication, etc.), XML, FTP, and CGI support, and others. Also it regularly receives security patches.
NGINX
The NGINX web server is one of the leading web servers available today that originally became known for being one of the fastest servers. However, open-source NGINX can offer a lot besides speed. It guarantees stable performance even under high loads because of its asynchronous event-driven approach to requests handling. It provides load balancing and can control and spread incoming traffic through reverse proxy. NGINX can also be used as a web accelerator.
There is the option of using NGINX as an intermediary server, connecting clients with the main web server and doing whatever is needed to prevent web server deceleration; for example, compressing content or performing SSL/TLS negotiations. Many popular platforms use NGINX, among them such giants as Netflix, Autodesk, Dropbox, and WordPress.
Microsoft IIS
Although, obviously, IIS is a web server designed only for Windows, it is extremely popular among large businesses. It offers a lot of great functionality, for example reducing surface area, that is, removing all server features that are not used to reduce memory footprint and enhance performance.
Its popularity can at least partially be attributed to the great support service with its own helpdesk, which is sometimes more reliable than the community support for open-source tools. The modular architecture of Microsoft IIS provides great opportunities for customization. IIS security is also considered to be better than that of open-source web servers.
Other Tools for web developers
There are certain professional backend development tools that might not be specifically designed for only backend web development, but it is hard to imagine the successful and efficient everyday work of software developers without them. There are dozens of such development tools utilized on a regular basis for backend development, but we will mention only some of the most widely used.
Docker
Containerization is the modern trend that is quickly becoming essential for backend web development. The Docker platform allows development teams to set up lightweight independent environments known as containers and use them instead of virtual machines to deploy applications. Containers are highly portable, scalable, and replaceable, so using them for deployment increases the speed of software development dramatically and ensures the agility of your project.
Docker is a sure way to reduce development costs, optimize your application for the cloud, and enhance the security and flexibility of your software backend. An application built using containers becomes very resilient, so often no downtime is required at all for fixing bugs or adding new features. Also, the popular microservices architecture is typically implemented using containers, which is another reason why the popularity of Docker keeps growing.
Postman
Microservices are a very popular choice for designing an application backend because they guarantee the app’s reliability, scalability, and efficient use of resources. An application programming interface (API) is how microservices usually communicate with each other, so it is impossible to imagine backend development without a convenient tool for building and managing APIs. Postman is one of the most widely used API development tools. It offers a user-friendly interface that facilitates the building and testing of APIs.
Postman features include converting API to code, various HTTP methods support, and many others. It streamlines collaboration for a backend development team, facilitating building a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. It can also be used in test automation services.
Git
Version control is an essential part of managing any codebase. Without it any project can plunge into chaos. Git, GItHub, and GitLab are often mentioned interchangeably as the most popular software version control tools. Just to clarify, Git itself is a version control software which can be used without any centralized repositories. GitHub and GitLab are both platforms that provide Git hosting. They are very similar, so you can choose whether to use GitHub or Gitlab as a platform for collaboration between developers, that will help them to review code, manage it remotely, and set up CI/CD and DevOps processes. There is also BitBucket by Atlassian, which is another popular Git-based source code repository hosting service with free and commercial plans.
Whichever Git provider you choose, this software is a great tool that streamlines the web development process, allowing you to track the changes different members of your development teams make and seamlessly merge them into a single codebase without breaking your software in the process. For example, by using git commands.
Both GitHub and GitLab can work as a place for developers to review code, but GitHub also allows to contribute to different projects on a volunteer basis, promoting open-source software development. Both services can also serve as a single point of truth and offer additional functionality for software projects like, for example, automated security and code quality management.
Jira
Any software project needs to be effectively managed to become successful, and backend web development is no exception. Jira by Atlassian is considered to be one of the leading project management and bug-tracking tools, used by multiple backend development teams who practice Scrum or Kanban project management workflows. In Jira, you can easily assign specific tasks to your team members, prioritize and categorize those tasks, and track their progress and completion.
Agile backend developers utilize Jira customization capabilities to set up the best workflow for their specific project. It has advanced reports available and integrates with multiple other tools like Confluence or HubSpot to cover all your project requirements for effective collaboration.
Visual Studio Code
Backend development is always more efficient, when you use an integrated development environment (IDE). An IDE is the kind of software that unites backend developer tools that are used, most commonly into a single graphical user interface. The VS Code editor software by Microsoft is a free open-source IDE that is very popular among backend developers.
VS Code autocomplete capabilities are far beyond many other IDEs, thanks to its IntelliSense feature, which bases suggestions for smart completion on function definitions, types of variables, and the modules you have imported. You can also debug your code directly from the editor, using an interactive console connected to your running application.
Another reason for VS Code’s popularity is its integration with source code management systems like Git. You can make commits or review the differences in the code directly from the editor as well. VS Code is extremely customizable, you can choose from dozens of available extensions to add more themes, programming languages, or debuggers to your IDE.
Backend as a Service
A lot of web developers prefer choosing specific technologies for building the backend of their applications. However, in some cases, it might be cheaper and faster to use low-code or even no-code solutions for your application backend development. There are multiple providers of backend as a service these days. BaaS solutions create your backend for you, setting up the web server, database, and other elements of the web application backend.
This service removes the need to worry about the architecture, allowing you to focus on the business logic of your application. You can build the backend side of your web or mobile app using only visual development tools instead of coding everything. No-code and low-code platforms also usually provide an easy way for scaling your app and integrating with third-party software.
Back4App
A popular low-code, open-source backend as a service provider Back4App can take care of the infrastructure for an app’s backend, regardless of what programming language is used for the frontend of the application. They offer both free and premium versions for various developer teams.
Back4App combines a number of open-source technologies, including Node.js, Docker, Parse server, Redis, etc. Its spreadsheet-like interface is considered beginner-friendly, so anyone can start building their backend quickly. It also offers automatically generated APIs with detailed documentation and multiple software development kits (SDKs) to connect the server side of the app to the client side easily. The SDKs are ready to use and support such technologies as JavaScript, React Native, Android, iOS, and others.
Applications created with Back4App can boast high security and a fully redundant architecture. The provider promises no single point of failure, which ensures your application stability and reliability.
Firebase
Firebase is an app development platform backed by Google that also offers backend infrastructure which is fully managed. This toolset includes everything you need to develop, release, and monitor your application. It also provides rich analytics and messaging opportunities to increase user engagement.
If you choose Firebase for backend development, you can quickly add functionality using readily available packages of code, create the server-side logic without setting up your own web servers, use robust authentication solutions, and conveniently configure everything remotely. Firebase also offers machine learning features with ready-to-use APIs, NoSQL databases, and app abuse protection through traffic monitoring.
Heroku
The cloud platform as a service provider, Heroku, is another option to delegate backend app development and concentrate on quickly getting a working app ready for release. Heroku officially supports eight programming languages, including PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, and Go, but you can also use any other language that can run on the Linux operating system with this platform, using a third-party buildpack.
Heroku’s feature set includes a runtime environment that uses smart containers for running your applications. This also ensures your app’s scalability, both vertical and horizontal. Heroku automatically checks the stacks in the containers and upgrades or patches them if necessary.
There is a convenient option for rolling back changes which is crucial when implementing modifications that can potentially break your app. Heroku also offers multiple monitoring capabilities for tracking your memory usage, errors, response times, and so on.
Conclusion
Choosing from among the best tools that most backend developers trust is a significant step on the road to the success of your web development project. There are lots of software options that can improve and optimize the work of your team in multiple aspects. Whether you decide to code your backend app from scratch or prefer a low-code or no-code solution, hopefully, this list of the most popular tools and technologies that facilitate backend development will be helpful.
