Focus on one of these 9 backend frameworks to become a backend wizard

This article was originally posted on Daily.dev this is mere the repost.

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:

🧠 Knowledge level (seen from a beginners point of view) 🦾 What it’s strong at 👎 Downsides

Laravel: 🧠 Beginner entry possible, 🦾 Modern programming, Flexible, Strict, Well documented 👎 Performance issues, Updates a lot (where third party packages might break)
Express: 🧠 Beginner entry possible 🦾 JavaScript, Fast, Multi-threading, Many tutorials, Extendable, Quick prototyping 👎 Changes rapidly, can be hard to keep up with, Security is not it’s top priority
Koa: 🧠 Beginner entry possible 🦾 JavaScript, Well structured, Improved security over express 👎 Fairly new, so certain pain points might hold you up.
Gin: 🧠 Medium knowledge required 🦾 Massive on performance, Super easy to get a rest API, a lot of middleware 👎 Not good if you want different server-side elements it doesn’t come with
Django: 🧠 Medium knowledge required 🦾 High security, a lot of stuff included like database modeling, etc. 👎 Speed, Would not recommend it for super small one pages for instance.
Flask: 🧠 Beginner entry possible 🦾 Flexible, testing made easy 👎 Not super strict, not super scaleable
Ruby on Rails: 🧠 Beginner entry possible 🦾 Super high standards, quick development using commands 👎 Speed, Hard to make flexible, Can be hard to change something later on
Spring Boot: 🧠 Advanced knowledge required 🦾 High on testing, Good with many databases, easy CLI integrations 👎 You can’t customize as you wish, hard to understand
ASP.NET MVC: 🧠 Beginner entry possible 🦾 Well proven, Fast server-side, MVC made easy 👎 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.

Laravel - PHP

Best paid resource to learn Laravel

Best free resource to learn Laravel

Node.js ~ Express

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.

Express.js - Node.js

Best paid resource to learn Express.js

Best free resource to learn Express.js

Express.js

Node.js ~ Koa

Much like express, another node.js framework is Koa, it’s built by the same people as express, and supposed to be the next generation.

I personally think at this point it depends on what your goals are, what job are you after, do they use express or are they very open?

Koa.js - node.js

Best paid resource to learn Koa.js

Best free resource to learn Koa.js

GoLang ~ Gin

I wanted to include Go/Golang language since it’s very hot and seems to be becoming bigger and bigger.

I personally haven’t used it yet. But from conversations, I hear Gin is the #1 framework at the moment.

Go is a language by Google and one to look out for if you’re completely new.

Gin - Golang

Best paid resource to learn Gin

Best free resource to learn Gin

Python ~ Django

If Python is your poison, have a look at Django. Django is a very powerful web framework on Python.

It’s fast, secure, and scalable.

Django - Python

Best paid resource to learn Django

Best free resource to learn Django

Python ~ Flask

Another great Python resource is Flask. It’s an MVC micro-framework, easy to understand, secure, and robust.

It uses Python imports to get certain aspects like a database module.

Flask - Python

Best paid resource to learn Flask

Best free resource to learn Flask

Ruby ~ Ruby on Rails

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.

Ruby on Rails - Ruby