Engineering
How to choose a tech stack in 2026 without regretting it in 2028
By Lukas Brandt, Co-founder & CTO · Published on · 7 minute read
Frameworks come and go. Here is the decision framework we use with every client to pick technologies that will still make sense two years from now.
Every few months, a client asks us the same question: “Which framework should we use?” The honest answer is that it matters less than you think — but the way you decide matters a lot.
Start with your team, not with Hacker News
The best technology is the one your team can hire for, debug at 2 AM and still understand a year from now. Before looking at benchmarks, we ask three questions:
- What does your current team already know well?
- How easy is it to hire for this technology in your city?
- Will this still be actively maintained in five years?
Boring is a feature
We are big fans of what Dan McKinley called choosing boring technology. Every company gets a small number of “innovation tokens”. Spend them on the things that make your product unique, not on your database.
If your stack is the most interesting thing about your company, something has gone wrong.
For most web products we start with Next.js, PostgreSQL and a managed hosting platform. That combination covers 80% of use cases with very little operational overhead.
// A typical starting point
const stack = {
frontend: "Next.js",
database: "PostgreSQL",
hosting: "Netlify",
};Write the decision down
Whatever you choose, write a short architecture decision record explaining why. Future you will be grateful. If you want help with that, get in touch — it is one of our favourite workshops to run.