Web applications we build
A web application is software people log into and use, as opposed to a marketing site they read. That distinction drives everything from the rendering strategy to the testing plan, because state, permissions and data integrity matter far more than page layout.
- Customer portals for accounts, orders, documents, billing and support
- Multi-tenant SaaS products with subscriptions, team management and usage limits; see our SaaS app development service
- Operations dashboards that combine data from several internal systems
- Marketplaces and booking platforms with search, payments and messaging
- Admin consoles that sit behind a mobile app and manage its content and users
SSR, SSG or SPA: choosing a rendering model
How pages are rendered affects load speed, search visibility, hosting cost and complexity. Modern frameworks let different routes use different strategies, which is usually the right answer: public pages rendered on the server or at build time, authenticated areas behaving like an app.
| Approach | How it works | Good for | Trade-offs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Static generation (SSG) | HTML built at deploy time and served from a CDN | Marketing pages, docs, catalogs that change rarely | Content updates need a rebuild or revalidation |
| Server-side rendering (SSR) | HTML generated per request | Personalized or frequently changing public pages | Server cost and latency per request |
| Incremental revalidation | Static pages regenerated in the background on a schedule or trigger | Large catalogs and listings | Brief windows of stale content |
| Single-page app (SPA) | Browser renders everything from JavaScript | Authenticated dashboards and tools | Poor fit for SEO-critical pages; larger initial bundle |
For most new products we use Next.js with React Server Components, which lets us render data-heavy views on the server and send less JavaScript to the browser. For purely internal tools, a Vite-based React SPA is often simpler and cheaper to host.
Backend, APIs and data
The backend is where business rules, permissions and integrations live, so we design it before building screens. We frequently build in Node.js with TypeScript, which lets frontend and backend share types, and we work in other stacks your team already maintains.
API design
REST with an OpenAPI specification suits most products and third-party consumers. GraphQL helps when many clients need different shapes of the same data. For apps where one team owns both ends, type-safe RPC can remove a lot of boilerplate. Whatever the style, we version APIs and document error formats.
Webhooks and third-party integrations get the same attention as user-facing endpoints. Incoming webhooks are verified by signature, processed idempotently and queued so a burst from a payment provider or CRM cannot overwhelm the app. Outgoing calls use timeouts, retries with backoff and circuit breakers, so a slow vendor degrades one feature rather than the whole application.
Data storage
- PostgreSQL as the default system of record, with migrations under version control
- Redis for caching, rate limiting and short-lived session data
- Object storage for files with signed URLs instead of public buckets
- A search index such as OpenSearch or a managed search service when database queries are not enough
- Message queues for email, exports, webhooks and other work that should not block a request
Authentication and application security
Authentication is easy to get mostly right and expensive to get wrong. We use established identity providers or proven libraries rather than custom password handling, and add enterprise SSO through SAML or OpenID Connect when your customers need it.
- HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite cookies for browser sessions rather than tokens in local storage
- Multi-factor authentication and passkey support for sensitive roles
- Authorization checks enforced on the server for every request, never only in the UI
- Protection against the OWASP Top 10, including injection, broken access control and SSRF
- Dependency scanning, secret scanning and security headers such as a content security policy
For commerce products we keep card data out of your systems through hosted payment fields, which reduces PCI DSS scope; our ecommerce app development page goes further into payment flows.
Frontend engineering for complex interfaces
Web applications put more weight on the interface than marketing sites do: data tables with filtering and bulk actions, multi-step forms with validation, real-time updates and role-dependent views. The frontend architecture has to keep that complexity manageable as features accumulate.
- TypeScript in strict mode across the codebase, with API types generated from the backend contract
- A component library built on accessible primitives, documented in Storybook and shared by every screen
- Server state handled by a caching data layer, with client state kept small and local
- Form handling with schema validation shared between browser and server
- Real-time updates through WebSockets or server-sent events where users collaborate or monitor live data
We test at three levels: unit tests for logic, component tests for interactive pieces, and Playwright end-to-end tests for the journeys that would cost the most if they broke, such as sign-up, checkout and permission changes.
Deployment, environments and ongoing operations
A web app runs continuously, so how it is deployed and operated matters as much as how it is built. We set up preview environments for every pull request, a staging environment that mirrors production, and automated deployments with database migrations that can run without downtime.
| Option | Fits when | Considerations |
|---|---|---|
| Managed frontend platform | Next.js apps with modest backend needs | Fast setup; costs and limits rise with heavy server workloads |
| Containers on AWS, Google Cloud or Azure | Products with several services, queues and compliance needs | More control; requires infrastructure as code and monitoring |
| Serverless functions | Spiky or low, unpredictable traffic | Cold starts, execution limits and harder local testing |
Backups are tested by actually restoring them, and runbooks cover common incidents. After launch, routine work includes dependency updates, security patches and capacity reviews, all of which we can cover through a support arrangement or hand over to your team.
Performance and scaling
Most web apps do not need exotic infrastructure. They need stateless application servers that can scale horizontally, a well-indexed database, caching in the right places and background jobs for slow work. We add complexity only when load testing or production metrics show a need.
- CDN caching for static assets and cacheable pages
- Core Web Vitals budgets tracked in CI and real-user monitoring
- Database query analysis and connection pooling before adding read replicas
- Infrastructure as code, with separate staging and production environments
- OpenTelemetry tracing, structured logs and alerting tied to user-facing symptoms
Process, timeline and cost
Web projects follow our standard discovery, design and sprint cadence, with a staging environment live from the first sprint so stakeholders can test real features. A focused first release commonly takes 3 to 6 months, depending on integrations and the number of user roles.
Typical US-market budgets range from about $30k–$90k for an MVP web app to $60k–$150k for mid-complexity platforms, and $150k–$400k or more for complex multi-tenant systems. These are estimates; request a scoped estimate for a figure based on your requirements.