8 ms·

Ask HN: What tech stack do YC startups use?

58 points by johan_larson 12y ago

What tech stack do the YC software startups tend to use these days? I'm going to guess Ruby on Rails, AWS, Angular.

jonahx 12y ago
I wouldn't assume there is a "YC tech stack". From individual blog posts I've read there is great diversity among YC companies' tech stacks. I also wouldn't assume that rails + angular is, or is even considered to be, the cutting edge of web stacks.
- johan_larson 12y ago
  Maybe. On the other hand, Paul Graham has strong views on what great hackers are like, which are likely to color his evaluations of candidate companies. It would be surprising to see a YC company running an Azure/Windows/C#/Visual Studio/TFS stack. And there are good reasons why someone might do so. http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html
  - arihant 12y ago
    I believe Loopt was on C# stack and its founder is currently leading YC, so I'm sure Paul didn't take stack too seriously when evaluating companies. There are a lot of good reasons to use Microsoft stack, and I suspect more than a handful YC companies use it. Paul said it is advisable to not use enterprise technologies if you're willing to attract high quality engineers only. He never said it can't be done and it is never implied that high quality small number of workforce is important to every business. If you're in consulting, for example, you'd want a larger workforce you can get for cheap. But I think you already mentioned that point, just throwing it out there.
    - kogir 12y ago
      I was Loopt's CTO and would use Microsoft's stack again, especially now. Not everything was perfect, but C#, F# and SQL Server are great, updates rarely broke anything, and security updates came regularly and promptly.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Cutting edge would be something on node most likely. Bleeding edge might be something like meteor.
hackerboos 12y ago
Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8105286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8105286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2223683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2223683
nickthemagicman 12y ago
Is php ever used?
- Artemis2 12y ago
  Probably only with things such as Laravel, but I guess it's frowned upon.
  - logicuce 12y ago
    One's proficiency in a language is more important than using a newly learnt shiny thing out there. Given the people who get in the YC batches are deemed to be smarter of us, I would not expect them to be judgmental about these things.
- e1g 12y ago
  As an anecdote - in my circles I observe that PHP is very popular among people who started working in web ~2000, while ruby is popular among those who started in ~2007. Nothing to do with seniority etc, I think it's simply the default choice of whatever was in vogue at the time when the person started hacking, and by now many PHP guys skew older and are out of the startup game (i.e. working in established companies on established products). As another example, I'm still astonishingly productive with PHP for backend APIs and rapid development projects. The symfony/Doctrine community has done a phenomenal job at bringing world-class tools to the language.
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    I started out with PHP in ~2000 as that's what people used, but then migrated over to Python around 2007 and web.py. Now I've experimented with node and Go, Java and Scala, but I prefer Python and Django. There's so much that Django gives you, it feels stupid not to use it. I haven't tried Ruby or Rails, I just don't feel like I need to. It doesn't really matter what you use if it gets the job done.
  - legohead 12y ago
    As a young person, when I was examining possible choices for development, I chose what was fast and stable. At the time that was C & PHP, and maybe even perl. I don't see how the young people of today decide to go with Ruby, with it's terrible performance, and especially last year with it's slew of vulnerabilities. If you like the beauty of Ruby, use it on your own stuff or for learning. But using it with intention for a production environment? I just don't get it...
pbiggar 12y ago
Rails. In w10, we were one of two non-rails users, though it seems that has changed to larger diversity. Most YC companies use CircleCI, so we get to see some of the diversity. While I haven't got concrete stats on this, I think it leans slightly more heavily rails than usual (and usual is about 50%). Bear in mind that that's skewed in some ways: if they were using C# for example they couldn't use us.
- tel 12y ago
  I thought you guys were using Clojure?
  - Kiro 12y ago
    What makes you think they are not?
    - tel 12y ago
      Via a complete and total misreading of his answer, actually! The initial "Rails." stuck in my mind even after he directly noted that they weren't using it.
  - sgrove 12y ago
    They do, and ClojureScript (they're responsible for the largest open-source React/Om ClojureScript app, https://github.com/circleci/frontend https://github.com/circleci/frontend). Because of the tech they built to auto-configure projects (and because of circle.yml), they also have statistics on tech usage across companies.
nwenzel 12y ago
Here's a broader look at tech stacks used by startups on Angel List: http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-exploration-of-angellist-data http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-ex...
- cageface 12y ago
  Love this bit: The likelihood that PHP is being used is strongly anti-correlated with company quality.
  - dennybritz 12y ago
    But... Correlation != Causation. I think the causal effect works more like this: People in the startup scene (and particularly in SV) are unlikely to pick PHP as the language of their choice -> Not many PHP companies started by experienced entrepreneurs -> Lower quality. The fact that PHP is correlated with lower startup quality (whatever that means) has probably nothing to do with PHP itself. If you forced all the smart people to use PHP, their companies would probably work out just as well.
    - rch 12y ago
      I was with you until the last line. Forcing really smart people to take a project in a direction they are fundamentally opposed to is suboptimal, at least.
      - dennybritz 12y ago
        I think you misinterpreted was I was trying to say. I didn't mean you should force people to use PHP (obviously that would be suboptimal) , but that the choice of technology has generally little to do with startup success. People who can execute well in terms of distribution and product can do so using any technology. It's just that this group of people is less likely to choose PHP for their projects because of cultural circumstances (SV, press, peers, etc).
  - troymc 12y ago
swah 12y ago
The tools that everyone else usess, skewed to the "new, modern side" would be my guess.
tomblomfield 12y ago
From my experience - Ruby on Rails, some kind of Javascript framework (Ember, Backbone, Angular), Postgres & Redis as data stores, hosted on Heroku. As you scale to the point at which Heroku is expensive, move over to AWS.
- johan_larson 12y ago
  Any idea why Google's App Engine isn't more popular? Too many restrictions? Too expensive? It's used quite a bit by other AngelList companies: App Engine 295 Heroku 969 AWS 388
  - atmosx 12y ago
    Because Google's App Engine might not be around this time next year, while AWS will most probably be there 10 years from today.
  - SkyMarshal 12y ago
    Lock-in. Good hackers want control, portability, and to not have to learn a proprietary platform.
arthurquerou 12y ago
SailsJS,Heroku, Angular @ MotionLead
- mackwic 12y ago
  I like SailsJS a lot but didn't have the chance to experiment it on a real project. How well does it scale ?
cpncrunch 12y ago
I'm not a YC startup, although my product was forked by a YC startup. I mostly pure javascript (no frameworks) on the front-end and C++/perl/php/mysql on the back-end. Incredibly reliable and stable.
sandGorgon 12y ago
Are there any startups using Java (not JVM) based web stacks (not backend or API endpoints). Any comments/experiences would be welcome !
- eduardordm 12y ago
  Hi! I use Rails in my company, which is not a startup anymore, but we are using java in a new venture. Our stack in this new company is based on spring (spring-boot, spring-data-rest, etc) and angularJs. We are very happy with it. Spring security and spring-data-rest are amazing. I love Rails with all my heart since it's what we use since 2005, but I have to say I'm impressed by the advances in Java in the last year or two. That said, if you are doing SPAs Java can be more productive than Rails.
  - sandGorgon 12y ago
    I'm a rails guy myself - how has your experience been in things like migrations, asset pipeline and integration of things like Coffeescript?
aswanson 12y ago
Interesting that bootstrap is negatively correlated with success.
- tim333 12y ago
  Yeah, I guess maybe it's good for knocking things together quickly but a bit generic looking for your masterpiece.
  - notduncansmith 12y ago
    If you don't change the default styles, sure. It looks decent enough that you can get an MVP into production without having to do much other than a light top coat for branding. Later on, you may want to invest in more heavily customizing some elements, but Bootstrap will pretty much stay out of your way. Source: Senior front-end dev that puts around one app per month into production using Bootstrap (some more heavily tweaked than others).
lpolovets 12y ago
You can use AngelList search to get some approximate relative counts of technologies at YC companies. For example, here are the counts for Java and Python: Java: https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[]=Java https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[... (15 companies) Python: https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[]=Python https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[... (31 companies) I basically used this same technique for the CodingVC blog post that was mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
jjbrow10 12y ago
Here at Enplug we use a wide range of tech. Server: C#, Databases: MongoDB and SQL Server, Messaging: RabbitMQ, Clients: LibGDX and Java on Android, Web client: AngularJS
lgieron 12y ago
The ubiquitousness of the assumption that software startup == web startup saddens me.

58 points by johan_larson 12y ago

What tech stack do the YC software startups tend to use these days? I'm going to guess Ruby on Rails, AWS, Angular.

I wouldn't assume there is a "YC tech stack". From individual blog posts I've read there is great diversity among YC companies' tech stacks. I also wouldn't assume that rails + angular is, or is even considered to be, the cutting edge of web stacks.

johan_larson 12y ago
Maybe. On the other hand, Paul Graham has strong views on what great hackers are like, which are likely to color his evaluations of candidate companies. It would be surprising to see a YC company running an Azure/Windows/C#/Visual Studio/TFS stack. And there are good reasons why someone might do so. http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html
- arihant 12y ago
  I believe Loopt was on C# stack and its founder is currently leading YC, so I'm sure Paul didn't take stack too seriously when evaluating companies. There are a lot of good reasons to use Microsoft stack, and I suspect more than a handful YC companies use it. Paul said it is advisable to not use enterprise technologies if you're willing to attract high quality engineers only. He never said it can't be done and it is never implied that high quality small number of workforce is important to every business. If you're in consulting, for example, you'd want a larger workforce you can get for cheap. But I think you already mentioned that point, just throwing it out there.
  - kogir 12y ago
    I was Loopt's CTO and would use Microsoft's stack again, especially now. Not everything was perfect, but C#, F# and SQL Server are great, updates rarely broke anything, and security updates came regularly and promptly.
Igglyboo 12y ago
Cutting edge would be something on node most likely. Bleeding edge might be something like meteor.

hackerboos 12y ago

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8105286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8105286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2223683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2223683

nickthemagicman 12y ago

Is php ever used?

Artemis2 12y ago
Probably only with things such as Laravel, but I guess it's frowned upon.
- logicuce 12y ago
  One's proficiency in a language is more important than using a newly learnt shiny thing out there. Given the people who get in the YC batches are deemed to be smarter of us, I would not expect them to be judgmental about these things.
e1g 12y ago
As an anecdote - in my circles I observe that PHP is very popular among people who started working in web ~2000, while ruby is popular among those who started in ~2007. Nothing to do with seniority etc, I think it's simply the default choice of whatever was in vogue at the time when the person started hacking, and by now many PHP guys skew older and are out of the startup game (i.e. working in established companies on established products). As another example, I'm still astonishingly productive with PHP for backend APIs and rapid development projects. The symfony/Doctrine community has done a phenomenal job at bringing world-class tools to the language.
- swartkrans 12y ago
  I started out with PHP in ~2000 as that's what people used, but then migrated over to Python around 2007 and web.py. Now I've experimented with node and Go, Java and Scala, but I prefer Python and Django. There's so much that Django gives you, it feels stupid not to use it. I haven't tried Ruby or Rails, I just don't feel like I need to. It doesn't really matter what you use if it gets the job done.
- legohead 12y ago
  As a young person, when I was examining possible choices for development, I chose what was fast and stable. At the time that was C & PHP, and maybe even perl. I don't see how the young people of today decide to go with Ruby, with it's terrible performance, and especially last year with it's slew of vulnerabilities. If you like the beauty of Ruby, use it on your own stuff or for learning. But using it with intention for a production environment? I just don't get it...

pbiggar 12y ago

Rails. In w10, we were one of two non-rails users, though it seems that has changed to larger diversity. Most YC companies use CircleCI, so we get to see some of the diversity. While I haven't got concrete stats on this, I think it leans slightly more heavily rails than usual (and usual is about 50%). Bear in mind that that's skewed in some ways: if they were using C# for example they couldn't use us.

tel 12y ago
I thought you guys were using Clojure?
- Kiro 12y ago
  What makes you think they are not?
  - tel 12y ago
    Via a complete and total misreading of his answer, actually! The initial "Rails." stuck in my mind even after he directly noted that they weren't using it.
- sgrove 12y ago
  They do, and ClojureScript (they're responsible for the largest open-source React/Om ClojureScript app, https://github.com/circleci/frontend https://github.com/circleci/frontend). Because of the tech they built to auto-configure projects (and because of circle.yml), they also have statistics on tech usage across companies.

nwenzel 12y ago

Here's a broader look at tech stacks used by startups on Angel List: http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-exploration-of-angellist-data http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-ex...

cageface 12y ago
Love this bit: The likelihood that PHP is being used is strongly anti-correlated with company quality.
- dennybritz 12y ago
  But... Correlation != Causation. I think the causal effect works more like this: People in the startup scene (and particularly in SV) are unlikely to pick PHP as the language of their choice -> Not many PHP companies started by experienced entrepreneurs -> Lower quality. The fact that PHP is correlated with lower startup quality (whatever that means) has probably nothing to do with PHP itself. If you forced all the smart people to use PHP, their companies would probably work out just as well.
  - rch 12y ago
    I was with you until the last line. Forcing really smart people to take a project in a direction they are fundamentally opposed to is suboptimal, at least.
    - dennybritz 12y ago
      I think you misinterpreted was I was trying to say. I didn't mean you should force people to use PHP (obviously that would be suboptimal) , but that the choice of technology has generally little to do with startup success. People who can execute well in terms of distribution and product can do so using any technology. It's just that this group of people is less likely to choose PHP for their projects because of cultural circumstances (SV, press, peers, etc).
- troymc 12y ago

swah 12y ago

The tools that everyone else usess, skewed to the "new, modern side" would be my guess.

tomblomfield 12y ago

From my experience - Ruby on Rails, some kind of Javascript framework (Ember, Backbone, Angular), Postgres & Redis as data stores, hosted on Heroku. As you scale to the point at which Heroku is expensive, move over to AWS.

johan_larson 12y ago
Any idea why Google's App Engine isn't more popular? Too many restrictions? Too expensive? It's used quite a bit by other AngelList companies: App Engine 295 Heroku 969 AWS 388
- atmosx 12y ago
  Because Google's App Engine might not be around this time next year, while AWS will most probably be there 10 years from today.
- SkyMarshal 12y ago
  Lock-in. Good hackers want control, portability, and to not have to learn a proprietary platform.

arthurquerou 12y ago

SailsJS,Heroku, Angular @ MotionLead

mackwic 12y ago
I like SailsJS a lot but didn't have the chance to experiment it on a real project. How well does it scale ?

cpncrunch 12y ago

I'm not a YC startup, although my product was forked by a YC startup. I mostly pure javascript (no frameworks) on the front-end and C++/perl/php/mysql on the back-end. Incredibly reliable and stable.

sandGorgon 12y ago

Are there any startups using Java (not JVM) based web stacks (not backend or API endpoints). Any comments/experiences would be welcome !

eduardordm 12y ago
Hi! I use Rails in my company, which is not a startup anymore, but we are using java in a new venture. Our stack in this new company is based on spring (spring-boot, spring-data-rest, etc) and angularJs. We are very happy with it. Spring security and spring-data-rest are amazing. I love Rails with all my heart since it's what we use since 2005, but I have to say I'm impressed by the advances in Java in the last year or two. That said, if you are doing SPAs Java can be more productive than Rails.
- sandGorgon 12y ago
  I'm a rails guy myself - how has your experience been in things like migrations, asset pipeline and integration of things like Coffeescript?

aswanson 12y ago

Interesting that bootstrap is negatively correlated with success.

tim333 12y ago
Yeah, I guess maybe it's good for knocking things together quickly but a bit generic looking for your masterpiece.
- notduncansmith 12y ago
  If you don't change the default styles, sure. It looks decent enough that you can get an MVP into production without having to do much other than a light top coat for branding. Later on, you may want to invest in more heavily customizing some elements, but Bootstrap will pretty much stay out of your way. Source: Senior front-end dev that puts around one app per month into production using Bootstrap (some more heavily tweaked than others).

lpolovets 12y ago

You can use AngelList search to get some approximate relative counts of technologies at YC companies. For example, here are the counts for Java and Python: Java: https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[]=Java https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[... (15 companies) Python: https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[]=Python https://angel.co/companies?incubators[]=Y+Combinator&teches[... (31 companies) I basically used this same technique for the CodingVC blog post that was mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

jjbrow10 12y ago

Here at Enplug we use a wide range of tech. Server: C#, Databases: MongoDB and SQL Server, Messaging: RabbitMQ, Clients: LibGDX and Java on Android, Web client: AngularJS

lgieron 12y ago

The ubiquitousness of the assumption that software startup == web startup saddens me.