Compatibility of web development frameworks with the lean startup approach

Abstract

This thesis deals with the development of a comparison table in order to evaluate the compatibility of different front and backend web development frameworks with the lean startup approach from Eric Ries [Rie11]. With the aim of achieving this goal, the main lessons of the lean startup are covered in the literature review and the assumption is made, that most startups follow this approach. In addition, the characteristics of modern web applications are introduced and some of the most common frontend and backend web development frameworks get explained in detail. The covered frontend frameworks are Angular, React and Vue.js and the mentioned backend frameworks are NET.CORE, Java Spring, Django and Node.js. Furthermore, the comparison table was developed using the insights from the literature review. It is important to mention that not all criteria were applicable for frontend and backend frameworks, therefore a comparison table was developed for each. Next, all the frameworks mentioned in the literature review got compared. The outcome was that React should be the most widely used frontend framework by startups and .NET CORE should be the most popular backend framework. In order to empirically prove the findings, the stackoverflow surveys 2017 and 2020 were analysed, mostly supporting the theoretical findings. The survey has shown that AngularJS is the most used frontend framework in 2017 but developers have also clearly pointed out that they would rather use React in the future. This eventually came true and in the 2020 developer survey, React was the most used frontend framework. In addition, Node.js was the most used backend framework by startups in 2017 however, there is also a shift towards .NET CORE visible which correlates with the theoretical comparison approach.