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🧱 Technology Stack & Rationale

This document outlines the technologies used in the project and the reasoning behind each choice. The stack is intentionally selected to be simple, cost-effective, secure, and suitable for a student-driven, volunteer-based team in 2025.

Frontend & Backend

Next.js (Frontend & Backend)

Both the frontend and backend are built using Next.js.

Reasons for choosing Next.js:

  • Simpler development model compared to managing React separately with additional backend frameworks
  • Built-in support for SEO, Server-Side Rendering (SSR), and fast initial load times
  • Widely known and adopted by students and developers in 2025
  • Strong ecosystem with extensive npm package support
  • Unified framework reduces architectural complexity and onboarding time

Using Next.js for both frontend and backend allows the team to maintain a single, consistent technology stack, which is critical for long-term maintainability in a volunteer project.

Authentication & Security

Firebase Authentication

Authentication is handled using Firebase Authentication.

Reasons for choosing Firebase Auth:

  • Free to use within the project’s scope
  • Authentication and security infrastructure is managed by Google
  • Supports multiple authentication methods and additional security factors
  • Eliminates the need to implement and maintain custom authentication logic
  • Reduces risks related to student and user data leakage, which would be a serious concern

Firebase may also be used for limited storage or related services when appropriate.

Database

Neon (PostgreSQL)

The project uses Neon as the PostgreSQL database provider.

Reasons for choosing Neon:

  • Generous free-tier offering
  • Fully managed PostgreSQL with modern scaling capabilities
  • Cost-effective for student projects
  • Seamless integration with Next.js and modern JavaScript stacks

This choice aligns with the project’s goal of remaining free-tier friendly while production-ready.

Hosting & Deployment

Netlify

The application is hosted on Netlify.

Hosting decision background:

  • Initially explored Cloudflare Workers (Node.js runtime)

  • Dropped due to limitations in full Node.js environment support

  • Netlify was selected because:

  • Native integration with GitHub organizations

  • No requirement to fork repositories into personal accounts
  • Simplified CI/CD and deployment workflows

While platforms like Vercel are popular, Netlify better fits the team structure, access control needs, and workflow constraints of this project.

Testing Strategy

End-to-End (E2E) Testing

Playwright is recommended for E2E testing.

Reasons for choosing Playwright:

  • Supports modern browser automation
  • Can generate automation scripts from recorded user interactions
  • Lighter and easier to configure than Selenium
  • Suitable for both functional and UI testing

Alternatives considered:

  • Selenium – Industry standard, but heavy and complex
  • Cypress – Good option, but setup and configuration can be more opinionated

Unit & Component Testing

  • Jest
  • React Testing Library

These tools are recommended for unit and component testing. Adoption may increase as team familiarity grows.

CI / CD

GitHub Actions

CI/CD is implemented using GitHub Actions.

Reasons for choosing GitHub Actions:

  • Native integration with GitHub repositories
  • Centralized automation within the GitHub ecosystem
  • Matches the current skill level of the team

  • Simplifies automation for:

  • Builds

  • Tests
  • Security checks
  • Deployments

Analytics & Monitoring

Google Analytics

The project integrates Google Analytics for usage and traffic analytics.

Reasons for choosing Google Analytics:

  • Free and industry-standard analytics platform
  • Provides real-world usage data (active users, sessions, engagement)
  • Enables contributors to truthfully state analytics-related experience on their resumes
  • Helps the team make data-driven decisions instead of assumptions

Having real production analytics allows contributors to present their experience in a measurable and verifiable format (e.g., “Managed analytics for a production PWA with X monthly users”).

Security Tooling

Dependency & Vulnerability Management

To maintain security without heavy operational overhead, the project integrates:

Dependabot

  • Automated dependency updates
  • Pull requests for vulnerable packages
  • Native GitHub integration
  • Helps keep dependencies up-to-date with minimal manual effort

Snyk

  • Scans for vulnerabilities in:

  • npm dependencies

  • Application code
  • Provides clear remediation guidance
  • Acts as an additional security layer beyond Dependabot

These tools help ensure that security issues are identified early, which is critical for a publicly accessible student platform.

Project Management & Collaboration

GitHub-Native Tooling

The project relies entirely on GitHub’s ecosystem:

  • GitHub Issues – Bug tracking and task management
  • GitHub Discussions – Design discussions and community interaction
  • GitHub Projects – Planning, roadmaps, and task boards

Why not Slack, Jira, etc.?

  • This is a college project with volunteer contributors
  • External tools introduce unnecessary complexity
  • Such tools require high discipline and constant engagement
  • GitHub provides sufficient functionality while keeping everything centralized

Guiding Principles Behind Technology Choices

  • Free-tier friendly
  • Simple onboarding for new student contributors
  • Secure by default
  • Minimal operational overhead
  • Fully GitHub-integrated workflow
  • Practical and sustainable for a volunteer-driven academic project