How to Build an Application in 2025 – Tech Stack, Tools & Complete Guide
You have an idea in mind but you don’t know how to get started? This guide will help you take your first step.
How to build an application in 2025? What tech stack to use? What should you consider? Let's cover all of it.
Introduction
It's 2025, and with the number of tech stacks available, it's easy to get overwhelmed.
One question to ask yourself is: what do you really need?, and then make a decision.
For example, if you have to build a single static page, you can do it completely via HTML alone.
You can build apps and scale it to millions of users irrespective of the tech stack you use.
Let's divide this section into:
8. CMS (Content Management System)
I’ll also provide additional resources towards the end.
1. Frontend: Best Frameworks in 2025
What you see on the screen of a browser is a simple combination of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) for layout, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) for styles and JS (JavaScript) for functionality.
There are many popular frameworks built around JavaScript such as
- React by Meta (Facebook) - has support for many packages
- Angular by Google - good for enterprise
- Vue.js.- light weight and beginner friendly
Even CSS has been made simple using Tailwind CSS and Bootstrap. Recently ShadCN UI has become the easiest option to use components.
Next.js
Next.js has become the go-to React framework in 2025. It supports server components, static generation, and serverless APIs out of the box, making it ideal for modern web apps. You can build a complete Full Stack Application using Next.js. You can easily host it via Vercel (its parent company) or self host on Hostinger, Digital Ocean or Hetzner.
Astro
Astro focuses on content-heavy sites by shipping less JavaScript to the browser. Great for blogs, marketing pages, and documentation. Astro has a pre designed template for blogs and documentation which is extremely easy to set up and get started.
Hugo
Hugo is a blazing-fast static site generator written in Go. You can build and deploy a simple blog in minutes without complex setup.
Jekyll
Jekyll powers many GitHub Pages blogs. It’s Ruby-based, easy to set up, and still relevant for simple sites and personal portfolios. Having the option to host it via Github itself makes it a very attractive option.
Decide what you exactly need --- based on that, you can make an informed decision.
2. Top Backend Technologies
The backend is the brain of your application—it processes data, handles requests, and talks to the database. What lies between your frontend and database is the API or the backend. You can build it using many languages such as .NET, Python, Go, Java, PHP and so on
.NET
.NET is very popular for enterprise level apps due to strong support from Microsoft. You can even build a full stack application using Blazor. You can easily host it via Azure or also self host.
Python
Python is the go to choice for AI, automation and data science. Widely used Frameworks are FastAPI for APIs and Django for web apps.
Go
Go is built by Google, ideal for scalable microservices and APIs.
Java
Java has been a stable choice since decades powering large scale applications especially with Spring Boot for APIs.
PHP
PHP powers WordPress. It is good for server side scripting. Pieter Levels has earned millions of dollars building multiple web apps using PHP and deploying it to VPS.
3. Recommened Databases
The database stores and retrieves your data.You have two options:
- SQL(Structured Query Language) - for structured data
- NoSQL - for non relational data.
Firebase
Firebase is built by Google. It offers a NoSQL database which is easy for authentication, and easy integration with both mobile and web apps.
Supabase
Supabase is an open-source alternative to Firebase. It comes with authentication, storage, and PostgreSQL, making it great for modern apps.
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is mostly suitable for large scale applications. It is a bit more advanced than the conventional SQL. It is open sourced.
SQLite
SQLite is file based and it writes directly to the disk. It is an excellent choice for side projects and small apps. It is open source and has over millions of databases written in SQLite worldwide. If you want to host your Nextjs application in Vercel, you can use Turso or equivalent which is cloud for SQLite.
Azure Cosmos DB
This is a NoSQL database offered by Microsoft which is extremely cheaper than Azure SQL.
4. Authentication (Auth)
Authentication is how you manage user sign-ups, logins, and secure access. You can either build your own or use ready-made solutions Firebase, Supabase also provide auth.
Clerk
Clerk is a modern auth provider that supports sign-in with email, social logins, and even passkeys. Easy to integrate with React and Next.js.
Auth.js
Auth.js (previously NextAuth.js) is a popular authentication library for Next.js. It supports multiple providers like Google, GitHub, and email/password.
5. Analytics: Track and Improve
Analytics helps you understand user behavior and improve your app.
Google Analytics
Most popular choice for tracking user behavior and traffic.
Plausible/Posthog
Newly emerging privacy friendly alternatives to Google Analytics.
6. Email
Emails are essential for notifications, verification, or newsletters.
AWS SES
Amazon Simple Email Service is affordable and scalable for transactional and bulk emails.
7. Payment Gateways
Stripe
The most popular payment processor for global businesses.Used by Netflix, Twitter and others.
Razorpay
Suitable option if you are in India. It supports international transactions as well.
Polar
Emerging option for open-source monetization.
Gumroad
Popular option to sell e-books, courses or even start memberships.
8. CMS (Content Management System)
CMS allows you to create, manage and publish digital content without requiring technical skills.
WordPress
Introduced in 2003, it still powers over 65% of websites. You can self-host or use WordPress.com.
Payload CMS
Payload CMS is a headless CMS with a developer-first approach. You can use databases such as PostgreSQL, SQLite and different storage options as well. You can get it up and running in Next.js . Recently it was acquired via Figma.
Ghost
Ghost is great for blogs and newsletter with option to even self- host as well.
9. Newsletter Platforms
Beehiiv
Beehiiv offers free tier up to 2,500 subscribers. It's easy to set up and you can get your website up and running in minutes.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit offers a more generous free tier of up to 10,000 subscribers.
Substack
Substack is free to use unless you want to connect your custom domain for which there is a one-time cost.
Others
You can also consider writing on Dev.to, Medium, Hashnode or Blogger
10. Documentation Frameworks
If you are looking to setup a docs portal, then you have the following options
Docusaurus
Open source project of Meta.
Nextra/Fuma Docs
Works well with Next.js and other frameworks as well
11. Cloud Providers
Will not be going in detail over this as these offer multiple solutions from hosting to domain to database to storage and much more.
- Google Cloud Platform(GCP)
- Azure (Microsoft)
- AWS (Amazon)
Cloudflare is mostly known for security and performance optimization.
12. Version Control
Version Control is used to store and track your code changes in the repository and the most popular solution available is GitHub.
13. Deployment Options
Vercel
Vercel offers a generous free tier to host your Next.js or other framework website. It is very easy to integrate with Github.
Netlify
Netlify too has a free tier and is very easy or simple to use.
Self-host(VPS)
If you are looking to host yourself, then you can consider a Virtual Private Server(VPS) . You can host multiple projects as well in a single VPS. Most popular ones are
- Railway
- Digital Ocean
- Hetzner
Coolify makes it simple to self-host your web app.
14. Code Editors
VS Code
Most popular code editor with tons of extensions including Github copilot and agents for AI Assisted coding. .
Cursor
Newly merging AI-powered code editor.
15. AI Vibe Coding
These tools help in generating full apps with text prompts. Popular ones are
- v0
- Lovable
- Bolt.
16. Search
If you are looking for search functionality within your app, then Algolia is the most widely used choice.
Conclusion
There are more options than ever to get started building your first web app in 2025.
Pick the tools that fit your needs and scale as you grow.
Remember: The simpler the better.
If you learnt something new today, do share it with others.
If I missed something in the list, or if you want to cover any of these in detail let me know!
