Frontend
Choose the frontend, then ship it right
The frontend is where a stack decision is most visible and most regretted - it is the layer users see, the layer that decides the hiring pool, and the layer that costs the most to swap out later. This section covers the decisions first - framework, rendering model, component library, state layer - and then the checklists that catch what a code review misses, adapted from the Front-End Checklist and rewritten with verdicts.
Choose the stack
Four decision guides, one per layer of the frontend, each ending in a pick you can defend rather than a list of options:
Ship it right: the checklists
Priority-ranked rules from Critical to Low, every one paired with a concrete fix rather than a reminder to "do it properly" - start with the launch checklist, then work through the discipline that is blocking you:
Already covered elsewhere on the site
The framework roundup and the styling layer live in the tool directory, the closest calls are settled in React vs Svelte and Next.js vs Astro, and the React hooks, CSS layout, Tailwind and accessibility cheatsheets live in the cheatsheets section. The build side - JavaScript build tools and Vite vs Turbopack - lives under DevOps. This section builds on them rather than repeating them - every frontend page links back to the reference it assumes you have open.
The checklists are adapted from the Front-End Checklist by David Dias (MIT licensed): every rule was rewritten in this site's voice, duplicates were merged, a few rules were overruled where the field moved, and the priorities were kept.