Ask HN: What back end and database are you choosing for new projects in 2026?
I am looking at the architectural choices of early-stage startups and new projects. I know the standard answer is "it depends on the use case," but I am curious about what people are actually choosing today when starting from scratch.
Specifically, I want to know about your backend language/framework and your primary database choice.
If you started a project or startup recently:
1. What is your backend + DB stack? 2. What was the driving factor? (e.g., maximizing iteration speed, team familiarity, type safety, AI/vector requirements, or keeping infrastructure simple/cheap?) 3. What did you intentionally trade off or sacrifice by making this choice?
If you could start over today, would you choose the same stack?
I still mainly use Django and Ruby On Rails; the main advantage of these two backend technologies is that there are enough solutions available for me to use. I mainly focus on solving business problems, so a ready-made framework (with everything I need) can reduce my decision-making costs and the threshold for using it. For databases, I mainly use MySQL, mainly because I have used it a lot in the past and am familiar with it.
For infrastructure, I insist on using VPS/Cloud Compute to set up my own Docker Swarm cluster for fast iteration and to reduce the complexity of the architecture. I would even prioritize monolithic applications and give up the microservices approach.
It depends on the type of app. If I expect few concurrent writes and don't need RLS, then sqlite. If the application is write heavy I am happy to get RLS for free by picking Postgres.
The DB choice is independent of the language. The language might be Python, Go or C# depending on the usecase.