> As far as tooling goes, just keep a simple. Aim for a simple MVP. DB? Go mysql. Frontend? Choose a templating engine like EJS and css. Backend? Node/Express e

> As far as tooling goes, just keep a simple. Aim for a simple MVP. DB? Go mysql. Frontend? Choose a templating engine like EJS and css. Backend? Node/Express ecosystem would be my go to. Push it to Github. Host it on Netlify. I think what OP was referring to is that what you describe is, ironically, the antithesis of "simple." Your "simple" solution requires knowledge of 5 separate frameworks/services, and having an understanding of the philosophy underpinning them and the alternatives to be confident those tools will be sufficient for your use case. And like you said, that doesn't even include monitoring, security, testing, etc. etc. And don't even get me started on all the tools you'll need to actually get users to visit your site after you build it (transactional email, marketing email, analytics, social media scheduling, SEO and its toolchain like Ahrefs and moz, etc). Keep it simple. Just learn these 27 different things. Simple!