computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

, a solution stack or software stack is a set of

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

subsystems or components needed to create a complete platform such that no additional software is needed to support applications. Applications are said to "run on" or "run on top of" the resulting platform. For example, to develop a

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

, the architect defines the stack as the target

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

web server A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

, and

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

. Another version of a software stack is operating system,

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...

, database, and applications. Regularly, the components of a software stack are developed by different developers independently from one another. Some components/subsystems of an overall system are chosen together often enough that the particular set is referred to by a name representing the whole, rather than by naming the parts. Typically, the name is an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

representing the individual components. The term "solution stack" has, historically, occasionally included hardware components as part of a final product, mixing both the hardware and software in layers of support. A full-stack developer is expected to be able to work in all the layers of the application ( front-end and back-end). A full-stack developer can be defined as a developer or an engineer who works with both the front and back end development of a website, web application or desktop application. This means they can lead platform builds that involve databases, user-facing websites, and working with clients during the planning phase of projects.

Examples

OS-level stacks

; BCHS :

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

(operating system) : C (programming language) :

httpd HTTPd is a software program that usually runs in the background (i.e. a so-called "daemon"), as a process, and plays the role of a server in a client–server model using the HTTP and/or HTTPS network protocol(s). The process waits for the inco ...

(web server) :

SQLite SQLite ( "S-Q-L-ite", "sequel-ite") is a free and open-source relational database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it ...

(database) ; Ganeti : Xen or KVM (

hypervisor A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

) :

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

with LVM (mass-storage device management) :

Distributed Replicated Block Device Distributed Replicated Block Device (DRBD) is a distributed replicated storage system for the Linux platform. It mirrors block devices between multiple hosts, functioning transparently to applications on the host systems. This replication can inv ...

(storage replication) :

Ganeti Ganeti is a virtual machine cluster management tool originally developed by Google. The solution stack uses either Xen, KVM, or LXC as the virtualization platform, LVM for disk management, and optionally DRBD for disk replication across physi ...

(

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

cluster management tool) :

Ganeti Web Manager Ganeti Web Manager is a web-based management interface for the Ganeti solution stack for virtual machine clusters. In 2010 the project was under development at the OSU Open Source Lab which uses Ganeti for hosting open source software projects s ...

(web interface) ; GLASS :

GemStone A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, semiprecious stone, or simply gem) is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewellery, jewelry or other adornments. Certain Rock (geology), rocks (such ...

(database and application server) :

(operating system) :

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

(web server) :

Smalltalk Smalltalk is a purely object oriented programming language (OOP) that was originally created in the 1970s for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, but later found use in business. It was created at Xerox PARC by Learni ...

(programming language) : Seaside (web framework) ; LAMP :

(operating system) :

(web server) :

MySQL MySQL () is an Open-source software, open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A rel ...

MariaDB MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported Fork (software development), fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Developm ...

(

database management system In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and an ...

s) :

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

, or Python (

scripting language In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...

s) ; LEAP :

(operating system) :

Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of ''Eucalyptus'' are trees, often Mallee (habit), mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalyp ...

(free and open-source alternative to the

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a part of Amazon's cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), that allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications. EC2 encourages scalable deployment of ap ...

) : AppScale (

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

-framework and free and open-source alternative to

Google App Engine Google App Engine (also referred to as GAE or App Engine) is a cloud computing platform used as a service for developing and hosting web applications. Applications are sandboxed and run across multiple Google-managed servers. GAE supports aut ...

) : Python (programming language) ; LEMP/LNMP :

(operating system) :

Nginx (pronounced "engine x" , stylized as NGINX or nginx) is a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache. The software was created by Russian developer Igor Sysoev and publicly released in 20 ...

(web server) :

(database management systems) :

, or Python (scripting languages) ; LLMP :

(operating system) :

Lighttpd lighttpd (prescribed pronunciation: "lighty") is an open-source web server optimized for speed-critical environments while remaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible. It was originally written by Jan Kneschke as a proof-of-concept of the ...

(web server) :

(database management systems) :

, or Python (scripting languages) ; LYME and LYCE :

(operating system) :

Yaws Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones, and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium ''Treponema pallidum pertenue''. The disease begins with a round, hard swelling of the skin, in diameter. The center may break open and form an ulc ...

(web server, written in Erlang) :

Mnesia Mnesia is a distributed, soft real-time database management system written in the Erlang programming language. It is distributed as part of the Open Telecom Platform. Description As with Erlang, Mnesia was developed by Ericsson for soft ...

CouchDB Apache CouchDB is an open-source document-oriented NoSQL database, implemented in Erlang. CouchDB uses multiple formats and protocols to store, transfer, and process its data. It uses JSON to store data, JavaScript as its query language using ...

(database, written in Erlang) : Erlang (functional programming language) ; MAMP :

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

(operating system) :

(web server) :

(database) :

, or Python (programming languages) ; LAPP :

(operating system) :

(web server) :

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL ( ) also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source software, free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. PostgreSQL features transaction processing, transactions ...

(database management systems) :

, or Python (scripting languages) ; MLVN :

MongoDB MongoDB is a source-available, cross-platform, document-oriented database program. Classified as a NoSQL database product, MongoDB uses JSON-like documents with optional database schema, schemas. Released in February 2009 by 10gen (now MongoDB ...

(database) :

(operating system) :

Varnish (software) Varnish is a Reverse proxy, reverse caching proxy used as HTTP accelerator for content-heavy dynamic web sites as well as APIs. In contrast to other web accelerators, such as Squid (software), Squid, which began life as a client-side cache, or A ...

(frontend cache) : Node.js (JavaScript runtime) ; WAMP :

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

(operating system) :

(web server) :

(database) :

, or Python (programming language) ;

WIMP WiMP is a music streaming service available on mobile devices, tablets, network players and computers. WiMP, standing for "Wireless Music Player," was a music streaming service that emphasized high-quality audio. WiMP offered music and podcast ...

(operating system) :

Internet Information Services Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Services, IIS, 2S) is an extensible web server created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NNTP. It has been an integral part o ...

(web server) :

(database) :

, or Python (programming language) ; WINS :

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a brand name for Server (computing), server-oriented releases of the Windows NT operating system (OS) that have been developed by Microsoft since 1993. The first release under this brand name i ...

(operating system) :

(web server) :

.NET The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...

(

software framework In computer programming, a software framework is a software abstraction that provides generic functionality which developers can extend with custom code to create applications. It establishes a standard foundation for building and deploying soft ...

) : SQL Server (database) ; WISA :

(operating system) :

(web server) : SQL Server (database) :

ASP.NET ASP.NET is a server-side web-application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, applications and services. The name stands for Ac ...

(web framework) ; WISAV/WIPAV :

(operating system) :

(web server) :

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a proprietary relational database management system developed by Microsoft using Structured Query Language (SQL, often pronounced "sequel"). As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of ...

(database) :

(backend web framework) : Vue.js (frontend web framework)

OS-agnostic web stacks

; ELK :

Elasticsearch Elasticsearch is a Search engine (computing), search engine based on Apache Lucene, a free and open-source search engine. It provides a distributed, Multitenancy, multitenant-capable full-text search engine with an HTTP web interface and schema ...

(

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

) :

Logstash Elasticsearch is a search engine based on Apache Lucene, a free and open-source search engine. It provides a distributed, multitenant-capable full-text search engine with an HTTP web interface and schema-free JSON documents. Official clients a ...

(event and log management tool) : Kibana (

data visualization Data and information visualization (data viz/vis or info viz/vis) is the practice of designing and creating Graphics, graphic or visual Representation (arts), representations of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and i ...

) ; GRANDstack :

GraphQL GraphQL is a data query and manipulation language that allows specifying what data is to be retrieved (" declarative data fetching") or modified. A GraphQL server can process a client query using data from separate sources and present the res ...

(data query and manipulation language) : React (web application presentation) :

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

(Data Graph Platform) :

Neo4j Neo4j is a graph database management system (GDBMS) developed by Neo4j Inc. The data elements Neo4j stores are nodes, edges connecting them, and attributes of nodes and edges. Described by its developers as an ACID-compliant transactional d ...

(

s) ; JAMstack :

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

(programming language) : APIs (Application programming interfaces) : Markup (content) ; MARQS : Apache Mesos (node startup/shutdown) :

Akka (toolkit) Akka is a source-available platform, SDK, toolkit, and runtime simplifying building concurrent and distributed applications on the JVM, for example, agentic AI, microservices, edge/IoT, and streaming applications. Akka supports multiple programm ...

(actor implementation) :

Riak Riak (pronounced "ree-ack" ) is a distributed NoSQL key-value data store that offers high availability, fault tolerance, operational simplicity, and scalability. Riak moved to an entirely open-source project in August 2017, with many of the ...

(data store) :

Apache Kafka Apache Kafka is a distributed event store and stream-processing platform. It is an open-source system developed by the Apache Software Foundation written in Java and Scala. The project aims to provide a unified, high-throughput, low-latency pl ...

(messaging) :

Apache Spark Apache Spark is an open-source unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. Spark provides an interface for programming clusters with implicit data parallelism and fault tolerance. Originally developed at the University of Californ ...

(big data and MapReduce) ;

MEAN A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

(database) : Express.js (application controller layer) :

AngularJS AngularJS (also known as Angular 1) is a discontinued free and open-source JavaScript-based web framework for developing single-page applications. It was maintained mainly by Google and a community of individuals and corporations. It aimed to si ...

/ Angular (web application presentation) : Node.js (JavaScript runtime) ; MERN :

(database) : Express.js (application controller layer) : React.js (web application presentation) : Node.js (JavaScript runtime) ; MEVN :

(database) : Express.js (application controller layer) : Vue.js (web application presentation) : Node.js (JavaScript runtime) ; NMP :

(web server) :

(database) :

(programming language) ;

OpenACS The ArsDigita Community System (ACS) was an Open-source software, open source toolkit for developing community web applications developed primarily by developers associated with ArsDigita Corporation. It was licensed under the terms of the GNU Gene ...

NaviServer NaviServer is a high performance web server written in C and Tcl. It can be easily extended in either language to create web sites and services; there are over 35 modules available (including database integration or protocol support for UDP, SM ...

(web server) :

(

web application framework A web framework (WF) or web application framework (WAF) is a software framework that is designed to support the development of web applications including web services, web resources, and web APIs. Web frameworks provide a standard way to build and ...

) :

Oracle Database Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle DBMS, Oracle Autonomous Database, or simply as Oracle) is a proprietary multi-model database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation. It is a database commonly used for ru ...

(database) :

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company ** TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

(scripting language) ; PERN :

(database) : Express.js (application controller layer) :

React (JavaScript library) React (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is a free and open-source front-end JavaScript library that aims to make building user interfaces based on components more "seamless". It is maintained by Meta (formerly Facebook) and a community of ...

(web application presentation) : Node.js (JavaScript runtime) ; PLONK :

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titans, Titan. He is best known for defying the Olympian gods by taking theft of fire, fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technol ...

(metrics and time-series) : Linkerd (service mesh) : OpenFaaS (management and auto-scaling of compute) : NATS (asynchronous message bus/queue) :

Kubernetes Kubernetes (), also known as K8s is an open-source software, open-source OS-level virtualization, container orchestration (computing), orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Originally designed by Googl ...

(declarative, extensible, scale-out, self-healing clustering) ; SMACK :

(big data and MapReduce) : Apache Mesos (

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines ...

startup/shutdown) :

(

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

implementation) :

Apache Cassandra Apache Cassandra is a free and open-source software, free and open-source database management system designed to handle large volumes of data across multiple Commodity computing, commodity servers. The system prioritizes availability and scalab ...

(database) :

(

messaging A message is a unit of communication that conveys information from a sender to a receiver. It can be transmitted through various forms, such as spoken or written words, signals, or electronic data, and can range from simple instructions to co ...

) ; T-REx : TerminusDB (scalable

graph database A graph database (GDB) is a database that uses graph structures for semantic queries with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. A key concept of the system is the graph (or edge or relationship). The graph relates the dat ...

) : React (

web framework) :

Express Express, The Expresss or EXPRESS may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''Express: Aisle to Glory'', a 1998 comedy short film featuring Kal Penn * ''The Express: The Ernie Davis Story'', a 2008 film starring Dennis Quaid * The Expre ...

.js (framework for Node.js) ;

XAMPP XAMPP ( or ) is a free and open-source cross-platform web server solution stack package developed by Apache Friends, consisting mainly of the Apache HTTP Server, MariaDB database, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl progra ...

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

(operating system) :

(web server) :

(database) :

(programming language) :

(programming language) ; XRX :

XML database An XML database is a data persistence software system that allows data to be specified, and stored, in XML format. This data can be queried, transformed, exported and returned to a calling system. XML databases are a flavor of document-oriented ...

(database such as

BaseX BaseX is a native and light-weight XML database management system and XQuery processor, developed as a community project on GitHub. It is specialized in storing, querying, and visualizing large XML documents and collections. BaseX is platform-i ...

eXist eXist-db (or eXist for short) is an open source software project for NoSQL databases built on XML technology. It is classified as both a NoSQL document-oriented database system and a native XML database (and it provides support for XML, JSON, HTM ...

MarkLogic Server MarkLogic Server is a document-oriented database developed by MarkLogic. It is a NoSQL multi-model database that evolved from an XML database to natively store JSON documents and RDF triples, the data model for semantics. MarkLogic is designed ...

) :

XQuery XQuery (XML Query) is a query language and functional programming language designed to query and transform collections of structured and unstructured data, primarily in the form of XML. It also supports text data and, through implementation-sp ...

(Query language) :

REST REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...

(

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...

interface) :

XForms XForms is an XML format used for collecting inputs from web forms. XForms was designed to be the next generation of HTML / XHTML forms, but is generic enough that it can also be used in a standalone manner or with presentation languages other tha ...

(client)

References

{{Web interfaces Software architecture Web frameworks

Examples

OS-level stacks

OS-agnostic web stacks

See also

References