How do you weigh the costs of web development frameworks vs building from scratch?

I would start my prospect with a saying, No pain no gain. When you think of a framework or an automation tool ,this comes with a price. The only thing is whether the investment has the returns which is coined as ROI(Return on investment). Whether you take development or testing the the frameworks like spring,selenium respectively make the work easier. Reinventing the wheel is not always required,instead go with the wind or utilize the technology. Gone are days writing code from scratch and today's fast paced requires the speed delivery as requirements change frequently. Not every automation tool is priced which too have strong community to support ,taking help of these might also ease our work but offcourse it is the individual's choice.

When you're deciding between web development frameworks and building from scratch, you need to consider your project's specific requirements, time-to-market needs, budget constraints, maintenance and updates, scalability and flexibility, team expertise, learning curve, community support, security, quality assurance, and the long-term viability of the framework. Weigh the advantages of using a framework, such as saving time and leveraging pre-built components, against the benefits of building from scratch, like complete customization and control over the codebase. Ultimately, make an informed decision that aligns with your project's unique needs and available resources.

For me, there is no correct answer to this dilemma, but these answers may help you make up your mind: Is the framework mature? Young frameworks are often discontinued, which means that you'll end up building on top of legacy code. Mature frameworks with a strong community around them are more likely to keep growing than the new kids on the block. Also, finding new devs for your project will be easier. Do you have an expert team? Learning a framework from scratch is hard because there are dozens of tricks that you need to master. An expert team can circumvent these problems more easily. Is your project highly experimental? If so, a framework might constrain your requirements. Otherwise, you will not be reinventing the wheel.

Deciding the web development framework depends on various factors but key considerations include the timeline of execution, budget and a broad sense of the evolution of the project over medium to long term. Many a times the project requirements evolve so the framework and overall project architecture should allow for extension or reuse of components which can drastically impact the costs and timeline.

First, take the time to very accurately comprehend the requirements and the details as to why. This will ensure you can make the best determination of how to meet them efficiently. All considerations for frameworks/libraries/APIs, etc need to take the following into consideration; Time to implement (includes research and learning as applicable), difficulty and capacity to maintain and whom will maintain it, as well as ongoing costs if any and the one many do not consider ahead of time costs to move to an alternative because this can and will occur. One additional requirement to consider is the lifespan for the project.

Frameworks are helpful but it's important to constantly update as releases are available. Also, it's a good idea to use server side code over client side scripting in web development where possible.

Web development frameworks streamline development, offer pre-built components, foster a strong community, enhance security, and ensure adherence to standards for high-quality applications.

We love to use web development frameworks. It speeds up our development time. Just make sure that we use frameworks that have great community, frequent update source code, and deliver our need.

No matter which resources you are familiar with or prefer to use, or even have biases towards using or not, each one was built to meet certain specific needs. The best practice for beginners through to experts is to comprehend what those needs are as this will enable to you select the most appropriate use case for each resource. Keep in mind at some point in your career you will need to work with resources you have little familiarity with and by keeping up with the specific benefits is the best manner to remain relevant and not be left behind or left guessing. As you become more familiar with coding and programming, your ability to adapt will also increase. So learning is reduced mostly to time to learn, which decreases as you grow.

Because of frameworks, I was able to deliver stable & secure solutions to my clients & stakeholders. They encapsulate reusable components, libraries, and functionalities. Most frameworks provide a solid implementation of authentication, authorization, security, audit log, exception handling etc. It saves hundreds of hours for you to write all those yourself.

Web development frameworks have drawbacks, including a learning curve, limited customization, potential maintenance challenges, performance impacts, and future compatibility concerns.

However, as a developer, our job is to determine the best possible framework for a given project. Every framework and libraries have their own pros and cons, however it gives you an upper hand to start off the project fast and an effective way by providing the structure and basic architecture of your app. Nowadays, we don’t build web applications and sites from scratch with plain Javascript for instance, so we must evaluate our possibilities and our team’s capabilities or technical debts to make sure we can deliver our product to the client in a timely manner.

Sometimes the drawbacks include the project/ framework maintainability, backward compatibility and how the framework plays within a larger project with multiple libraries or dependent systems. There are certain performance bottlenecks that may arise due to framework limitations but mostly these impacts are meaningful only at scale.

My personal preference is to use as little dependencies as possible. Less is more. This ensures you maintain more control over your projects from the get go and less surprises down the road. When you find areas that require specific functionality or other and limitations dictate you use one or many dependencies, then so be it. This is part of the developer workflow and fortunately there are suitable tools for most situations. You might need to research or network to find the best solutions but it is well worth the effort. This becomes your "tool belt".

Frameworks require a whole new learning. Such learning limits which developer you can use on the project. Frameworks also come with many limitations if you want to customize the experience. I have faced situations where my client wanted a specific way for web pages to work, but I could not deliver because the framework followed a completely different approach.

Building websites from scratch gives you more control over frameworks and coding structures. While this process is time-consuming and costly, building platforms from scratch will result in fast-responding websites.

The only thing I build from scratch nowadays are bash scripts. Any complex development can take advantage of a framework in a lot of ways. Even when I build from scratch, I end up building a framework. For example, I started an ETL project in Python with a custom architecture. Over the time, I understood that this project could be much more maintainable if I reworked its architectural patterns. To date, this custom framework is being used in three different projects of an international company with a capitalization of almost 100 million euros. My conclusions on this topic are two: 1. Building from scratch is almost a deprecated task. 2. Even when you create a project from scratch, you must observe some development patterns.

Building from scratch offers control, flexibility, and innovation, but requires time, expertise, and careful planning for maintainability and scalability.

Building from scratch is preferred where the project scope requires a lot of changes to existing frameworks to achieve the goal. Also keeping in mind the future scope of work and project goals should not be inhibited by existing framework/ architecture. Other bottlenecks may arise at scale wherein building from scratch might make more sense. But why not contribute to improving the existing framework than writing your own? Another factor to consider is the Intellectual Property Rights of the codebase and the licensing of frameworks - these must be carefully weighed in to choose whether to go for an existing framework or write code from scratch.

Based on personal experience programming and coding two web platforms from scratch, I can derive the following insights specifically. You should have plenty of time and resources lined up and be ready for long hours. The task of coding itself is only roughly 40% of the work necessary to do a great job. The other tasks are planning for 25%, problem solving for 25% (you cannot plan well enough to avoid all issues and conflicts), and testing for 10%. Regarding simple web projects the percentages will likely remain the same, unless you are not doing much programming. then you will be about 25% planning, 60% coding, and 15% testing. It is simple to begin but more difficult to complete, and even easier to not account what will be necessary.

The challenges from building from scratch, I found that you better be ready to role up your sleaves and do the work. Especially if your budget is low and have the willingness to learn on the way while you move forward towards your goals.

Instead of having standards you have to choose the standard you like. Think about: 1) code quality 2) test 3) security issues. It's good to have a discrete language knowledge and to follow principles. I think that is good to read the famous "Clean code" book.

I have been coding for over 45 years. Building from scratch unfortunately has rarely gone well. I seen it at brokerage firms, manuafacturing firms. The problem is that the lead developers typically spend more time builiding the framework than building real applications. Also when they inevitably leave for more compensation, the in house framework has no one to maintain it. In the era of Open Source building your own framework is not a smart play.

Building from scratch poses challenges: requires substantial time and resources, demands high technical expertise, lacks ready-made components, hampers maintenance, and lacks the framework's support and structure.

The most overlooked aspect of building from scratch are the obstacles you thought you planned well enough to avoid, but ran right into anyways while following your plan. The reality is until you get there you really do not know for sure. Every project from scratch will throw something unexpected at you. For large projects it is well advised that you have a firm grasp on various methodologies. These will ensure you have the appropriate tools available to leverage where necessary; testing, debugging and security in particular are highly dependent upon good execution. One alternative is to create small projects that you can reuse and use later on to create your larger projects and save yourself a lot of time and builds your own resources.

Choosing the right platform is essential to the project's success and is based on the website's objective, scale, budget, and deadline. If the budget is low and there are time constraints, developers must rely on open-source or SaaS platforms to ensure the project meets the goals and objectives. However, if there are no time constraints and the budget allows, building platforms from scratch is a great way to have total control over your websites and capabilities.

Utilizing a blend of frameworks and vanilla programming proves advantageous in my experience. Frameworks excel under tight schedules, yet long-term maintenance poses challenges, particularly as modules or the entire framework become obsolete. Thus, discernment is key in identifying potentially deprecated modules, warranting a custom-coded approach for enduring components. An example of this is my practice of crafting SQL queries instead of relying on framework-provided query builders.

I generally choose based primarily on deadline and project requirements. Ideally, being able to build from scratch does give you a lot of control; however, in the end, using a framework, if you're familiar with how it's built (i.e. WordPress), you can easily be able to control how it will look as well.

The decision depends on factors like project complexity, time constraints, team expertise, and scalability needs. Frameworks offer pre-built components for efficiency and consistency, ideal for rapid development. However, building from scratch provides full customization but requires more time and expertise; consider both options based on your project's specific requirements and resources. Personal Experience: I once opted for a framework to speed up development for a client's e-commerce site. It allowed us to quickly implement core functionalities, but we faced limitations when customizing certain unique features. Ultimately, the framework's trade-offs aligned with our project's timeline and goals.

Both approaches come with distinct advantages and drawbacks. As with any decision, the ultimate driving force is often the ROI. Building from scratch provides complete autonomy, flexibility, unburdened by external constraints. But it requires a higher upfront investment, and the payoff lies in eventual scalability and adaptability. On the other hand, utilizing a framework alleviates initial expenses while giving you a comprehensive toolkit for your nascent stages. Within this framework, ample room for innovation exists, even within the predefined parameters you can perfectly realize your goals. In the long term though and upon scaling, it often ends up costing more due to the necessary workarounds to overcome its inherent rigidity.

An alternative to the either/or approach is to use both based on their strengths. For example, a framework may be a better choice for a team project for facilitating code reviews, whereas building from scratch may be better for a job interview or an exam to demonstrate a fundamental understanding of web development.

It is exciting to build a project from scratch. Still, in the current landscape, where new technology has to be adopted quickly to keep up with trends, it is more practical to use frameworks to ease the development process and produce a very secure and robust web product. But like other contributors have said, if you have the team and your project requires fine-tune control and adaptability, you would be better served building from scratch.

Utilizing a blend of frameworks and vanilla programming proves advantageous in my experience. Frameworks excel under tight schedules, yet long-term maintenance poses challenges, particularly as modules or the entire framework become obsolete. Thus, discernment is key in identifying potentially deprecated modules, warranting a custom-coded approach for enduring components. An illustration of this is my practice of crafting SQL queries instead of relying on framework-provided query builders.