The thing that often gets misunderstood is that there's no magic technology that gives a massive competitive advantage here. If you pick Django/Python, PHP/Laravel, Rails, Node, Go, Java, whatever... you end up the same place. Keep it simple, since it will change if your business experiences growth anyways. Pick what you know, or what you want to hire for.

How do you create value for your customers and offer them something that is worth them paying for? Your customer doesn't know/care about the tech behind it. The technology side is a piece of the business puzzle with the goal of shipping your product/service and gaining traction ASAP.

If you don't get traction, the technology side doesn't really matter because the business case isn't there. Ship to market, get feedback, iterate, get more customers and repeat.

Rails (I'm Ruby dev). I've been playing with Vue lately and like it a lot. You can have all component's code in one place -> html+js+css, so it's super fast and easy to keep adding code. Also, I like React, but somehow whenever I use it I feel I am writing a lot of code for simple stuff.

I am finishing my first product in Elixir. It has some rough edges like deployment, but I start to like it more than ruby&rails - the code is much more readable and imo easier to write. Surprisingly I feel a bit more productive in it than rails.

I'd say the best tool is the one you know. If you don't know any tool for your specific problems, look for the simplest and most sane solution.

It depends on what I'm trying to accomplish. If I'm trying to build something quick to prove that there are interested people out there I use a static html page with JQuery and Form Gadget (https://www.formgadget.com/) to handle form submissions and integrations. Sometimes this is enough even for the product depending on what it is.

If it's something that includes a subscription model, etc, then I like Akka Http (Scala), Slick, JQuery or React + Redux. More importantly though go with what you know well and can make progress in quickly, unless you want to learn something new.

Disclosure: I built Form Gadget.

My favorite tool is boring Ruby/Rails because I know it best and I'm hyper-productive.

Your favorite tool should be whatever allows you to be hyper-productive. The goal isn't to be flashy or cool or hip, the goal is to create something: features, changes, bugs, etc.

If you value your time and sanity, go with what you know.

Rails with as little front-end js as possible. I am yet to see or experience a more efficient workflow for a custom app.

Also, competitive research and paper prototyping before coding.

Having built a bunch of these helps me ask the right questions and postpone the right features to make it possible to get to an mvp really fast.

PHP, Bootstrap, JavaScript (and jQuery), MySQL, Apache, Stripe for subscriptions, Mailgun.

I use Node for building it, WinSCP to upload it, and I just delete everything, and unzip the new build.

Customers.

Talk to them.

Learn from them.

Iterate based on what they say and/or do.

Market to them using their words.

Playframework (with Scala) + Vue.js (with Typescript) + Heroku.

It gives me a good balance on development speed over project's age and performance. I particularly like the balance of type safety and brevity.

Learning curve is high for new comers because of Scala and how to integrate Vue.js with Playframework. But, once I know how to do it, it's not an issue when starting a new project.

Elixir/Phoenix + ES6/Vue + Stripe + PostgreSQL + Vultr

React + GraphQL + Node + PostgreSQL

We have written a blog about it: https://ideatostartup.org/blog/idea-to-startup/the-best-tech...

react, node, next.js (framework), firebase (db/auth), bulma (css), divjoy (prototyping with code export), zeit now (hosting)

Core parts of my stack at the moment:

Groovy/Grails, Bootstrap, jQuery, Postgresql, AWS, Stripe, Mailchimp, Github

Apereo CAS for Single-Sign-On

Activiti for workflow management / BPM

We also have a core suite of internal services that are mostly built using Java + Spring Boot.

Of late, I've moved to Elm/Lambda functions/DynamoDB or PostgreSQL. I've seen my productivity improve a lot when using Elm with the added advantage of being able to clearly define the problem in my mind.

Using Netlify for deployment has also save me a lot of headache (they really are awesome!)

In the end, like everyone else points out, its about picking a set of tools which lets you work without thinking too much about the development process itself.

GitHub Pages, Google Forms, WordPress, Mailchimp.

Angular, Spring Boot and PostgreSQL if it actually turns out to be something for which there’s sufficient demand.

rails + heroku + pg + vuejs + bootstrap/bulma

I built two multi-million $ companies with Wordpress and HTML/CSS/JS scrapping. It doesn't really matter. Users don't care about your underlying tech. Tech advantage exists, but it's certainly not tied to a specific programming language. Understanding your user is key, and executional excellence and overdelivering, not technology.

An additional question would be all the ancillary tools needed to build a startup:

Mail + Payments + Payroll + Insurance + Marketing +++ etc..

Money

Rails for me, or one of the new crystal lang web frameworks if I'm feeling adventurous. Rails has the syntax you wan't, and crystal has both the syntax and the speed, but it's not quite yet 1.0.

My Favorite is Django/React/Material Design.

Go -- Backend

Vue.js -- Front end

Vuetify

Docker

Kubernetes

GCP

AWS, Python and Angular. Nothing else is needed. Go make your millions.