I taught myself to program to build [redacted], a comparison website for phone contracts in the UK.

Front end: plain JavaScript

Back end: Node.js

Host: $10 DigitalOcean droplet

Web server: Nginx

SSL: Let's Encrypt with certbot

Proxy: Cloudflare

Database: Postgres

Caching: Redis

Indexing: MeiliSearch

I wanted to learn JavaScript and understand the fundamentals, so I used vanilla JavaScript for the front end without any framework (React, Vue, etc).

Initially, the comparison engine was slow, so I learnt about indexing and added MeiliSearch to the stack.

I try to keep it as simple as possible and only add what I need.

I plan on migrating to Next.js eventually - not because I need to, but because I think it will be a good learning experience. However, that's not my priority right now, and is probably an excuse for marketing/content procrastination!