When you say you want to build something simple with a few pages, you might be able to get by with something minimalist like Flask and maybe DataTables: https://datatables.net/
If you don’t expect to have scalability or real-time needs, I would not really recommend Elixir/Phoenix. The core language, dev tools, docs, and OTP are best-in-class, but there’s a learning curve, and the ecosystem has less mindshare than Python and Ruby.
I personally prefer Python/Django with htmx for client-side interactivity (if you need it), but if you want something better-integrated out of the box, you can’t go wrong with Ruby/Rails/Hotwire either.
Using a VPS is cheap and initially simple, but keep in mind you have to do more setup and maintenance on the OS, Web server, database, etc. yourself. I’ve had a great experience with DigitalOcean VPSs in the past, but for the app I’m building now, I am leaning toward using their managed app platform to minimize sysadmin/infra work on my part.
With any solution, you’ll need to have some awareness around SQL injection, CSRF, XSS, etc. Some frameworks have sensible defaults to help you avoid common mistakes, but there’s no 100% fool-proof solution.
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When you say you want to build something simple with a few pages, you might be able to get by with something minimalist like Flask and maybe DataTables: https://datatables.net/
If you don’t expect to have scalability or real-time needs, I would not really recommend Elixir/Phoenix. The core language, dev tools, docs, and OTP are best-in-class, but there’s a learning curve, and the ecosystem has less mindshare than Python and Ruby.
I personally prefer Python/Django with htmx for client-side interactivity (if you need it), but if you want something better-integrated out of the box, you can’t go wrong with Ruby/Rails/Hotwire either.
Using a VPS is cheap and initially simple, but keep in mind you have to do more setup and maintenance on the OS, Web server, database, etc. yourself. I’ve had a great experience with DigitalOcean VPSs in the past, but for the app I’m building now, I am leaning toward using their managed app platform to minimize sysadmin/infra work on my part.
Thanks for the thoughts, I'll check out DataTables.
HTMX - looks cool, but I was reading that HTMX is susceptible to XSS. Probably avoidable with proper sanitization, but just a consideration I saw.
Which managed platform are you using? Hard to pass up a $4/mo VPS, but I am sure at some point down the line, there will be a headache in my future.
Of course!
With any solution, you’ll need to have some awareness around SQL injection, CSRF, XSS, etc. Some frameworks have sensible defaults to help you avoid common mistakes, but there’s no 100% fool-proof solution.
Right now I’m in dev mode and haven’t deployed anything yet. DigitalOcean does have a managed app platform: https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform