Don’t start from trends

There is no universal “best stack.” Ask three questions:

  1. Who maintains this in 2 years? (internal skills, local hiring pool)
  2. What constraints are non-negotiable? (performance, compliance, legacy integrations)
  3. What’s the cost of change? (migration, training, tooling)

Simple matrix

Context Common direction
Greenfield B2B SaaS TypeScript + API (Node or Java)
Enterprise / banking Java, .NET, sometimes COBOL adjacent
Data / ML Python + orchestration
Marketing site Next.js, Astro, headless CMS

Classic mistakes

  • Picking Rust or Kubernetes “to learn” on a 3-month delivery project.
  • Forcing one stack org-wide without looking at existing teams.
  • Ignoring observability and CI from day one.

→ Selling a niche stack? See find freelance dev work.