My Tech Stack

Time to update my tech stack. Much has changed since I first posted this. I am currently the IT Web Application Developer for a state agency in Washington State. I am also a Virtual Service Pilot Participant for the US Peace Corps working on a web development project in Jamaica. The tools I use predominately influences the following list:

Frameworks

Below are the frameworks I developed in for the last 5 months:

• Astro - I surprised myself by using Astro in one of my state projects. I am quite happy I did since it will help me meet WCAG Level I and II compliance for accessibility. I will use Astro with a headless Drupal in the next phase of the project.
• SvelteKit - Still my favorite framework that I am using to design the prototype for my VSP Peace Corps project with an NGO in Jamaica. I will also use Decoupled Drupal in the project.
• Tailwind CSS - My favorite CSS framework. I will only use Tailwind CSS and Components in my projects.

Headless CMS (Decoupled)

Sometimes clients need an easier way to add content without touching the HTML. I am dumping WordPress as my headless solution since it is easier to set up Drupal and Directus.

• Drupal - My go to headless CMS now that I will integrate with Astro and SvelteKit projects.
• Directus - A new self-hosted headless CMS. I use this with Coolify.

CSS Framework and Components

There are many, I just use the Tailwind CSS framework.

• Tailwind CSS - This is the only CSS framework I used now.
• Alpine.js - Another favorite. Right now I am using Alpine.js directives with my TailwindUI components.
• TailwindUI - I own a license. Most of my sites use TailwindUI components.
• shadcn-svelte - My favorite components library to date.

Databases

• MariaDB - All my MySQL databases will be migrated to MariaDB.
• Postgres - Got several container apps using Postres.
• PlanetScale - I was surprised, great way to start MySQL projects. I am thinking of moving my project database to PlanetScale if my app gets traction.

Hosting

• Vercel - Where I host most of my Jamstack projects.
• Linode - I host my headless WordPress sites here plus other software. I use Coolify to manage all my services now.
• Cloudflare Pages - I have one static site hosted there. You cannot beat the price, free.

Mail Services and Communication

• Gmail - No surprise here. For WordPress, I will use Gmail mail server for some of my contact forms.
• Namecheap - Still the most affordable way to host large amounts of email. I will eventually forgo this feature and just use the email routing built into Cloudflare.
• Cloudflare - Cloudflare now has a free email routing. No need for many emails. Just setup one catchall email and forward it to your main email.
• Fastmail - One of my long term favorites. If I ever ditch Gmail, I will use Fastmail more.
• Mailfence - Another favorite. Premium version allows you to set up other domains. Privacy focused.
• Mailgun - My main mail relay for most projects.
• Formspree - My main contact form service.
• Slack - My updates are with Slack but I will start to move everything over to Mattermost and Telegram for privacy reasons.

CDN and DNS

• Cloudflare - I do not even use the DNS provided by Namecheap, Linode, or Vercel.
• Vercel - Vercel is a CDN as well, I have to remember to disable the CDN option in Cloudflare.

Cloud Platform as a Service

• Coolify - By far the best PaaS that is open source. Currently I use Coolify to manage my headless WordPress instances, Ghost, Directus, n8n, Plausible, and Uptime Kuma. I will eventually install Mattermost and Mastodon with Coolify.