Top 20 Server Side Tools You Will Love

This article will explore 20 of the best server side tools to be used on your tech stack. It will cover categories like platform as a service, backend as a service, repositories, IDEs, etc.

Computer professionals and enthusiasts appreciate the roles that the server-side and client-side play in app development.  App users are only exposed to the client-side, which is the app interface that they use.  However, all the functions of the app are controlled by powerful programs in the server-side (back-end), where the app engineering task are done. 

Practically, the client-side is like the visible part of an iceberg that often looks small, while the larger submerged iceberg is like the server-side.  A single interface on the front end can be controlled by hundreds of server-side code lines. Summarily, all the amazing functions seen in online services today are controlled by server-side tools.

An Overview of Server Side Development 

App users cannot access the server-side interface, so they may not know it exists at all. However, it is crucial to point out that the work done and codes written for the server-side are always more than that of the client-side or user interface. 

The procedure for writing codes for an app frontend is called Frontend development, and the procedure for building the backend functions is called server-side development. 

The backend developers use several server-side tools to build the business logic that controls app functions on the user interface.  The server-side tools are often used to write codes for various functions like building platform architecture, resolving challenges, and many more.

However, the rule of thumb is that server-side codes and activities are not visible to the user. 

What are the advantages of server-side tools?

Modern apps can be deployed from a variety of platforms, thanks to the wide array of server-side tools that enhance app development.  These tools enhance the development process and allow apps to run from different environments. 

These server-side tools handle a wide array of tasks, like transferring data from the user interface to the database and retrieving it for display when the need arises. Managing scheduled tasks, processing data and managing messaging are other essential functions of the app backend. In essence, the server-side is the engine that controls communication and website functions.

Every function you see on an app’s front end is managed by codes created with server-side tools. So, if you see a website with an impressive and functional user interface, remember that all these are powered by the backend.  Websites cannot function without proper backend technology in place. 

Top 20 Server-Side Tools List

Below are the top 20 tools for server-side development. Keep on reading as we discuss each of these tools 

Back4App  

Back4App is one of the top backend-as-a-service that offers infrastructure and server-side tools required for app development. Developers use this platform to build apps, customize them and scale as the need arises.

Since Back4app provides a fully managed product, the users don’t have to bother about maintaining servers. Developers love this platform because it offers premium tools that aid their development assignments such as automatic app scaling.

Other server-side tools on the Back4App platform include live queries, database, notifications, hosting, GraphQL API, and REST API. These are powerful resources that manage features like authentication, storage, database communications, and many more. 

Back4apps has a free tier while the premium services include a shared plan starting at $25/mo and dedicated servers from $250/mo.

Heroku

Heroku offers a cloud solution that allows developers to use multiple programming languages for development projects. The eight languages supported are Node.js, Go, PHP, Ruby, Scala, Python, Clojure, and Java.

The service of Heroku is powered by smart containers called dynos.  These are managed runtime environments where developers host apps. The technology stack of Hero is maintained and upgraded regularly to provide more features. 

Developers on this platform can access real-time server events like CPU load, memory, app response time, errors, and many more. Heroku also shares information about ongoing user projects to its entire network through a secure URL. 

Another excellent feature of Heroku is the rollback feature that empowers developers to launch experimental features and revert as the need arises. Horizontal and vertical scaling on Heroku is seamless. That is why the platform is often used by enterprise-level app projects.

Firebase

Firebase provides a suite of server-side tools for developing, enhancing, hosting, and scaling your app. These tools simplify most of the app development assignments and minimize the need to write codes manually. That is why Firebase helps app developers save time on their projects.

Experienced developers can add custom features to their Firebase app by creating server-side codes. With unfettered access to several fully managed mobile-centric services, developers can focus on creating frontend features that elevate the user experience. 

Cloud services on Firebase are mainly NoSQL databases and REST APIs. Other useful features include database, authentication, analytics, notifications, configuration, and authentication. All these services are on the cloud and they scale automatically when required.  

Firebase offers a free plan while the shared premium plan is charged based on resource usage during a billing period.

Kubernetes

The businesses that embrace microservices cloud solutions that use containers love Kubernetes for its robust features and reliability. Kubernetes is a container-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) used by developers for building hardware extraction layers.  

This architecture type empowers developers to request and access server resources on the fly since the same resource is shared among all development teams.  As such, Kubernetes is a powerful server-side platform for developing tools for packaging, distribution, and testing. 

Kubernetes works flawlessly on AWS, GCP, intranet-based servers, or other cloud servers you prefer. This means you can easily redeploy the Kubernetes app without redesigning the app or bothering about infrastructure change.

Many cloud service providers offer turnkey Kubernetes management solutions. This server-side tool has become the de-facto standard for container-based server architecture deployments.  Its lightweight and agile deployment make it a preferred cost-efficient solution among developers.

Docker

Docker is a powerful tool that developers use to quickly roll out features and update apps. It is an open-source container optimized for cloud deployments and improves application framework development in modern apps.

Docker deployment is faster because it allows developers to launch apps with automated configurations and infrastructure. Developers leverage the resiliency of this server-side tool launch, test, upgrade, and rollout production versions without suffering downtime. 

Moreover, Docker empowers developers to fine-tune the backend through micro-services-based methods. Irrespective of the app deployment location, Docker developers can deploy portable and scalable apps because Docker images are not limited by the environment. 

The high stability of Docker improves productivity because it supports more features without encountering bottlenecks. Therefore, there is less need for debugging. In all, Docker containers expedite app deployments and improve the overall efficiency.

NGINX

Nginx was designed as a highly stable web server known for its speed and responsiveness. Over the years Nginx has grown extensively and broadened its service to support the latest web technologies. 

The modern Nginx server goes way beyond supporting static HTML to include technologies like Web Sockers, gRPC, RTMP, HLS, HDS, and many more.  This versatility and performance make Nginx one of the top server options, rated higher than classic servers like Apache.

Given its ability to manage a massive number of connections without degrading performance, Nginx is often used for load balancing and web server accelerator. As a reverse proxy, the Nginx server accepts connections and redistributes them to slower upstream servers. 

Developers often deploy the Nginx server as an intermediary to perform tasks like compressing content or managing SSL/TLS requests. The Nginx server efficiently handles tasks that can degrade the performance of conventional web services.

Pivotal Tracker

Pivotal Tracker is a purpose-built project design and management tool that allows developers to gain clarity about a project timeline based on the team performance. 

This product management tool has been refined over the last decade to enhance collaboration and communication. The refined features facilitate agile workflow so that team members can access conversations, documents, and project status without hassles.

The Pivotal Tracker is user-friendly and can be learned easily. It allows developers to take control of imminent tasks and project owners can know the status of their project.

Development teams using Pivotal Tracker have access to superior collaboration tools, notifications, detailed analytics, project history, multiple integrations, and third-party tools.

Jira

Initially, Jira was developed to track bugs in mobile and web apps but evolved to a full-fledged project management tool. It is commonly used by developers for building customized app development roadmaps so they can release app versions on schedule.

Jira uses Scrum and Kanban models for managing projects. The four packages of Jira are Jira Core, Jira Software, Jira Ops, and Jira service desk.  These packages are suitable for various users ranging from non-technicians, to project managers, engineers, and developers.

Jira also supports plugins that empower various professionals to get unique results. Developers can report issues with plugins to Jira through the integrated test management packages. 

Summarily, Jira is a server-side tool for organizing software development assignments to enhance productivity.

Slack

Application development projects that have large teams often have teams working from different locations remotely.  So how do you manage teams that are not located in the same workspace? Slack provides a viable solution for keeping team members connected, allowing each member to contribute while keeping the entire team active. 

Moreover, Slack provides tools that make instant collaboration and communication among team members straightforward.  Rather than combining multiple apps like email, instant messaging, and text messaging apps to manage team activities, Slack offers everything as a one-stop solution.

You no longer have to bother about keeping track of your team communications in your inbox. Slack provides the technology that simplifies communication, allowing you to message, share files, and do voice and video conferencing from a single location. This server-side tool helps you take control of team communication and make it flexible, fun, and engaging.

Google Pagespeed Insights

Google Pegespeed insight offers a suite of tools for analyzing your website speed and suggests ways of improving the loading time of your site.  This tool provides vital insight into user experience, lab data, and performance issues on a website. In essence, the tool checks potential issues based on best design practices and also simulates the site’s real-life user experience. 

The field data gives insight into the real-world experience, while the lab data is useful for troubleshooting performance issues. The information derived from this tool gives the developer an overview of the site’s performance on desktop and mobile devices. It also makes recommendations for enhancing page load speed.

In all, Google Pagespeed insight is a useful backend tool that analyzes website performance, allowing developers to improve the overall user experience. 

GitLab

This is an excellent platform for managing application development tasks among teams.  It provides a single-thread interface where developers can store data and communicate openly.

With GitLab, development teams can build, configure, manage, and monitor ongoing app development processes in a streamlined environment.  Development teams can collaborate faster and implement innovations seamlessly. 

GitLab provides development teams with leading-edge CI/CD tools, so team members can manage projects from a single point without requiring additional tools.  GitLab projects benefit from features like leading-edge security, code-quality assurance, vulnerability management, and lots more. It allows teams to collaborate effectively and deploy faster without compromising project governance.

GitHub

GitHub is well-known in the open-source community as a code repository for open-source projects. In fact, it emerged as the largest code repository worldwide with millions of developers using it to manage app development projects.

This backend tool is a powerful version control centralized service with all the benefits of a decentralized version control platform. GitHub works by storing a copy of your app project in a central repository where other developers can access it, make edits and share it with other collaborators.

As such, developers can simplify the process of advancing open-source projects and monitoring revisions efficiently.

Besides using GitHub for project version control, developers can also use GitHub to build their professional profiles. The best advantage of this platform is that it brings global developers together in a community where they can share knowledge and collaborate efficiently.

Apache

Apache is an open-source web server that works excellently on multiple platforms like Windows, Unix, macOS, and Linux operating systems.  The Apache server is highly flexible; it gives web administrators the power to make extensive configuration changes to suit their unique requirements.

This extensive configuration option makes the Apache server stand out among competitors.

Given that Apache powers over half of the global web servers, it is unequivocally the leader in the webserver cloud service subsector.  The features of the Apache Server are numerous, we will take the time to mention the few top ones.

Some of the main features of the Apache webserver include support for FTP, CGI, and XML, session and user tracking, a multi-request processing module, live status monitoring, loadable dynamic modules, and many more.

Bitbucket

Bitbucket is a server-side tool that allows teams to manage Git storehouses. This app provides a central location where developers can manage Git repositories.  So teams use the centralized point to update the source code and manage the app development workflow.

Some of the features Bitbucket offers include team workflow control, Jira integration, source code access control., pull-request management, in-line commenting, REST API for creating custom features for workflow, and many more. 

Developers can deploy Bitbucket in three different ways, namely:

• Bitbucket Cloud – This option is made up of CI tools pipelines for building, reviewing, and deploying apps within Bitbucket.

• Bitbucket Server: A Bamboo integration option offering CI/CD tools for building software automatically.

• Bitbucket Data Center: Developers using this option enjoy smart monitoring, high availability, optimum performance, and many more.

New Relic

This is a Software as a Service platform that benchmark and analyze app performance by deploying a standard Apdex score called the application performance index.  The procedure involves using a predefined standard to run programs in an application development environment.

This service is all about monitoring app performance and availability. Developers simply provide data about their cloud platform, and New Relic gets to work to give insight that helps improve the platform so you can build better apps.

With the New Relic app performance and monitoring service, developers have live insight into the performance of web apps and online services. 

New Relic continuously improves its platforms with features like native integrations with third-party tools like Slack and PagerDuty.  Other features include transaction monitoring, user monitoring, alerts, notifications, error and availability monitoring, performance monitoring, and much more. 

Datadog

Datadog is a Monitoring as a Service solution that gives you access to teams, apps, metrics, clouds, and servers from a single location.  This turnkey solution handles event and metrics integration across all your development stacks. 

Developers use this service to examine, debug and improve app performance by monitoring metrics like requests and the app’s responsiveness. Datadog gives the platform users access to freely explore data with smooth analysis and data log filtration.  With the use of human-readable tags, developers are empowered to visualize traffic flow.

They can also create groups and add containers or data centers, or any other digital asset to access key metrics reports.

In summary,  Datadog provides a central platform for scrutinizing user experience, tracing user journeys, accessing engineering data through AI-enhanced tests. The platform proactively detects performance problems and alerts the admin.

GitKraken

While developers can manage Git assignments from the command line interface, a graphical user interface is a welcome alternative. GitKraken brings value to Git users by providing a Graphical User Interface that allows you to manage Git assignments quickly. This resource is a free, open-source VCS that is useful for developers and non-developers.

Whether you have a small project or work with a large team of developers, KitKraken can handle all your version control and software development assignments quickly and efficiently. With the Kraken Graphical User interface, Git users can execute several commands with mouse clicks. They can:

• Perform right-click for undo and redo,’
• Access Git Hooks support,
• Sign commits,
• Customize user workspace,
• Access Gitflow support
• Use in-built merge tools, 
• Integrate with GitLab
• And many more.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is a question-and-answer site dedicated to programmers and developers.  This platform provides an avalanche of data from experienced developers around the world. Whether you are a new or experienced programmer, you can benefit from insight from other experienced developers worldwide.

The Stack Overflow community offers a knowledge base of programming and software skills from experts worldwide. If you have a question or an issue you want to resolve, simply create a new thread on the site and an expert will attend to your issue in a matter of hours. It is an excellent resource for bridging the knowledge gap of developers.

Whether you are a solo developer or work with development teams, Stack Overflow is an excellent platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Postman API

Postman API is an excellent Application Programming Interface (API) tool for managing development projects efficiently.  Developers use the integrated tools for building, testing, and editing APIs without hassles.  Postman API makes the procedures for developing APIs straightforward and fast.

All the commands and functions you need to develop an API are integrated within the Postman API app.

Postman API users can also access advanced tools that automate API testing. For instance, the developer can build a custom continuous delivery pipeline that makes a production API resilient to errors or changes in the code.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is one of the best development tools for backend and full-stack developers. This tool presents a wide range of functions that help you build and manage codes quickly and efficiently.

Developers love Visual studio because of its simplicity and powerful tools that help you develop apps quickly and confidently. You can integrate Visual Studio with Docker to build Docker images that contain all your app dependencies. This approach allows you to run the container-based app with any cloud service provider you like without hassles.

With Visual Studio, you can use ASP.Net Core to write your program and deploy it to any webserver to make it live.

Conclusion

This article has reviewed different types of server side development tools that create value for app development assignments. The list includes tools ranging from Backend as a Service, to version control, infrastructure providers, and much more.  You can explore these valuable server-side development tools to improve the application development procedure of your team.

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