From Laravel and Ruby on Rails to Angular and Django and everything else in between, there are multiple web development frameworks available. This means that you’re spoilt, which is both a good and a bad thing. Over the years heading a top web development company in India, I’ve come to realize that all frameworks have their strengths and weaknesses, with each ideal for different scenarios. In this article, I’ll be sharing my experience, which can hopefully help you choose the right web development framework for your business.
Check the activeness of the community
No one is an island when it comes to web development, and as I always like to say, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when there’s a perfectly good one that you can borrow. That’s where the idea of the community comes in.
When considering what web development framework to go for, one of the first preliminary things that you want to take a look at is the size and activeness of the community, as they may give you a head start by providing:
- Documentation
- Tutorials
- Support forums and so on
In many instances, you’ll find that a community is an important source of boilerplate code that can help you hit the ground running with your web development project.
Spare a thought for scalability
If you’re building a web application that’s just intended for a limited number of users and traffic, then you can get away with a rigid framework. Otherwise, I recommend that you choose a highly scalable framework that can help you ensure your app still performs well even if its user load greatly multiplies overnight.
So this naturally leads us to an important crossroad: what is the most scalable web framework? You may get different answers depending on which web app development company you ask, but I personally recommend Django for its high level of scalability. That said, many other frameworks are also well-known for this including, Ruby on Rails, React, Express and others.
Prioritize security features
Truth be told, the security of your web app relies mostly on you rather than your web development framework. It’s up to you to take precautionary measures, some of which may include:
- Validating and sanitizing user input code to prevent malicious code like SQL injections
- Setting authorization and authentication measures that help to prevent unauthorized access to the system or limit user permissions
- Tracking error handling instances so you can prevent DoS attacks, and other threats of this nature, and so on
That being said, your web framework still has a significant role to play. Ideally, you want one that comes with in-built security features that you can integrate with your own security measures to ensure a foolproof web development process.
Think about the nature of your app
One of the first questions that you should ask yourself is, what type of application am I building? For example, the framework my web and mobile app development company would use to build an eCommerce app would be totally different from the one that I would use to build something like say, a content management system.
In this case of the eCommerce scenario, I’d go for a framework that supports Wix, WooCommerce, Shopify and so on. Basically, I’d want a tool that’s optimized primarily for shopping experiences. On the other hand, if I were looking to build a complex web app, my money would be on Angular or React.
In a nutshell, you want to keep in mind the type of web app that you want to build because this will help you choose the appropriate framework according to the nature of your application.
Read up on a framework’s license
Most frameworks have some sort of license, which basically governs how you can use the framework, and failure to adhere to this can attract legal consequences. For example, some frameworks are open source and may allow you to modify, distribute, and use the software as you please.
On the other hand, some frameworks have licenses that restrict commercial use. It’s important that you understand what type of license you’ll need so you don’t accidentally violate the terms of using that framework.
But it isn’t always black and white, and there are different types of software licenses for you to consider, some of which include:
- Dual licenses
- Propriety or commercial licenses
- Copyleft
- Weak copyleft
- Permissive and so on
So before you settle on a framework, be sure to take a good hard look at the nature of its license and be sure to read the fine print as well.
Consider its learning curve
Time is of the essence when you’re developing a web application. If you’re going to be working with inexperienced developers who are going to be using the framework for the first time, you want to ensure that it has a very soft learning curve.
Otherwise, you’ll end up with a complex framework that increases your downtime due to extended staff upskilling. Without any prior programming knowledge, I therefore recommend a simple framework such as React or Flask, for example, although I must confess that difficulty is a matter of relativity.
That’s not to say that complex frameworks like Laravel or Django, for instance, are inherently bad. Far from it, these frameworks provide a huge range of capabilities and customizations compared to most frameworks. But they are particularly ideal if you already have a strong programming foundation to build on.
Prioritize a compatible framework
Is your framework compatible with your stack? This is also one of the most important considerations to keep in mind when choosing a web development framework. In fact, it should be one of the very first things that you do so that you can rule out those that are not compatible with your technology stack.
For example, if you’re a Python developer you’d want a web development framework that can support this language, and a few examples include:
- Django
- Flask
- TurboGears
- Web2py and so on.
Meanwhile, if you work with Java, you may want to go for frameworks like Ruby on Rails or Angular, for example. The point is to ensure that the framework is compatible with your technology stack.
Final verdict – which framework carries the day?
It’s the question that you’ve been waiting for, but the good news is that there isn’t one answer but many. Any framework is great so long as it meets your needs in terms of what type of app you’re building, the nature of its licenses, scalability and security. I won’t recommend any specific one because that will depend on factors that are unique to your workflow. What’s more, there are many great web development frameworks so it’s hard to box myself on just one. However, based on this guide, you should be able to narrow down your options and end up with the right web development framework for your project.
