I'm new to web app development as well. I've a background of system development and mobile app development. Choosing backend development was one of the things I

I'm new to web app development as well. I've a background of system development and mobile app development. Choosing backend development was one of the things I spent some of time on. One of the first things I tried was to build simple rest api backend using Java on google app engine. Then used Django Python frame work. Then nodejs with express. Then coming to frontend - I had some idea of JavaScript and jQuery. After trying angular and react - I picked angular since its a ready mv* framework and its concept like two way binding, modules, dependency injection seemed intuitive to me. After trailing two sides - I decided to go with MEAN stack. Primary reason was its in one language. No context switching of language, IDE etc. I think it has been good decision since. Having said that : angular entices one in beginning but has a learning curve but then it's a ready mv* framework. for somebody new its not bad to start and understand how it is done by something which is ready. (Search angularjs architecture in Google images - a architecture picture worth a lot of documentation) Nodejs programming style is async. One needs to get used to it. Npm repo is great community and package called 'async' is really helpful to get good grip on nodejs. And the idea of async IO is way efficient is something I've experienced in writing network libs but rather painfully. So I was sold to pick nodejs which is async by design. Given another chance I would look at other front end framework since I kind of get primary ideas of frontend framework now. IDE - atom is good. webstorm has code navigation and automatic drop down of functions for nodepackages. Hence I am on it. Grunt for test, build automation. Mocha chai.. for tests.