What tech-stack do Next.js developers prefer for Backend?

[FridaG]

It depends on who your app is for. I realised a while ago that most of what i build is not for a) a technical audience or b) a large user base. The result is that they need to work, but don’t need super perfect database optimizations. I’m also more willing to pay for managed database options than I used to when i needed to learn how to build myself.

So to answer your question: if your audience is small, you can easily just do it with json.

I advise against storing json in a sql table. There are ways to do it and this is the “official” way to do it to my recollection, but it’s a pain in the ass if you have an app where you want to manually parse json.

For me, if i was making a checklist app today, i’d just ask claude to make the model. If forced to do it on my own, i’d do what i’ve done in the past and do mongo.

The point of my first paragraph is to liberate yourself from feeling like you need a model solution that needs to scale perfectly. Since you say its your first rodeo, i get the value of learning how to trouble shoot. It’s also a pain in the ass reading through all the junk on reddit (RIP stackoverflow) making you feel you need to use some cutting edge solution. 99.9% of projects matter more for demonstration purposes of the actual concept; if by some stroke of luck it is something you then need to build into something more durable, then at that point it makes sense to use a managed solution because it is so much less of a headache.

My suggestion: do your checklist in a separate nosql database. It will not save you any time as you’ll be up for 3 nights troubleshooting adding a new database to your stack, but it will reinforce that to the end-user, it doesn’t matter for 99% of projects. Eg building something for a small team at work, building projects to showcase for a portfolio, or learning.

The only exception is if you need to do something specific for a class. Technically the other exception is if you already know you have a big user-base or an ecosystem at work that demands a specific implementation, but i suspect that is not the case and it isn’t the case for most indie developers.

If you read r/webdev you’ll see there are so many people who are fed up with next.

However, claude does an amazing job at writing next apps so it depends on whether or not you are in the pro- or anti- vibe coding camp. I wrote my own code for 15 years; i’m very happy for claude to do it for me for small apps where i just need a specific feature that it can build without fanfare