Every project you ship has the same skeleton underneath it. The names of the tools change, the trends come and go, but the layers stay the same.
Here are the 10 components I think about every time I'm starting a new project in 2026.
1. Frontend The part users actually see and click on. React, Next.js, Vue, Svelte, plain HTML. I spend very little time here, usually just use React or Svelte
2. Backend Where your business logic lives. Node, Python, Go, Rails, Spring, whatever. This is the layer that handles requests, enforces rules, and talks to everything else.
3. Database Where your data lives and how you access it. Postgres is the default answer for a reason. SQLite is underrated for small projects. Recently I’ve been opting for more managed options (supabase) as I don’t want to babysit a server.
4. Auth Who is this person and what are they allowed to do. Do not roll your own, you will make mistakes and the learning is not worth it at this point in time IMO. Clerk, Auth0, Supabase Auth, NextAuth, any of these will save weeks of pain vulnerabilities.
5. Hosting / Infra Where the code actually runs. Vercel, Netlify, Fly, Railway, Render, AWS if you need the control. Rule of thumb: if you want to ship fast, use a more managed option, if you want to learn how big companies operate, use a major cloud provider and manage things yourself.
6. Payments If you plan to make money, you need this from day one. Stripe is the default. Lemon Squeezy and Paddle handle sales tax as merchant of record, which is worth its weight in gold if you're selling globally. Do not try to build your own checkout.
7. Email Two flavors here, and people mix them up constantly. Transactional (password resets, receipts, notifications) goes through Resend, Postmark, or SendGrid. Marketing (newsletters, lifecycle) goes through something like beehiiv, Loops, or customer io Sending marketing email from your transactional provider is a great way to get your domain flagged.
8. Product Analytics How people actually use your app. PostHog is my go-to because it bundles product analytics, session replay, and feature flags in one tool. Mixpanel and Amplitude are the heavier-duty options. Plausible or Fathom if you just need simple page views without the Google Analytics baggage.
9. Observability Logs, errors, and metrics. The stuff that tells you why production is on fire at 2am. Sentry for errors, a real logging tool (Axiom, Datadog, BetterStack) for everything else. Set this up before launch!
10. 3rd Party APIs Everything else you're plugging in: AI models (OpenAI, Anthropic), maps, SMS (Twilio), search (Algolia), file storage (S3, Cloudflare R2), etc. Most modern apps are 20% your code and 80% gluing services together. Pick your vendors carefully, because swapping them later is painful.
Get these 10 right and you can build almost anything.
I built a little tool that lets you click through each layer, pick your tools, and export a clean diagram of your stack + a prompt to have claude or chat start a system design for you with that stack in about 60 seconds.
Give it a shot: https://stackpicker.arjaythedev.com/
Stack from a recent project I am working on:
